Umbreytingu
by Elfpen
Summary: Toothless has somehow managed to get himself turned into a human. Hiccup is, understandably, having a strange day. Non-slash
1. Vikingr

At that particular moment in time, there were at least three dozen facts revolving around in the world of Hiccup that he could classify as 'a problem'. This one, however, managed to win the Problem of the Century Prize with its eyes closed.

Literally.

Toothless was asleep. Rather normal, really. It was midday, they were in their favorite cove, it was warm, and although Toothless had changed his living habits drastically in accordance with Hiccup's schedule, he was still an essentially nocturnal creature, and enjoyed nothing more than an afternoon nap. To add to the normalcy, Toothless was a very peaceful sleeper. Hiccup had often theorized that it was some sort of survival instinct that all dragons shared in common, that they remained completely unmoving in sleep. If it wasn't for his breathing, Hiccup might have taken him for dead. Also, although Hiccup might not ever confess it to another soul, he often liked to watch Toothless sleep because the dragon usually slept with his face smashed up against his paws in a rather adorable puppy-like manner that made Hiccup smile.

All this taken into consideration, it was not actually Toothless' state of unconsciousness that was the problem. The problem, as Hiccup tried to understand it all with a gape-mouthed expression, was the inescapable conclusion that this was, in fact, _Toothless_. At least, so far as he could figure, it _had_ to be Toothless. How? He hadn't the slightest idea. There were black scales lying around him, and that subtle smell of fish, and some nagging logic in the back of Hiccup's mind told him that it _had _to be, because really, what _other _explanation was there? Still, it was hard to believe.

Cautiously, Hiccup shuffled over and poked him in the shoulder. Toothless shrugged him off with a murmur that didn't really sound right, and Hiccup quickly rebounded with another poke. Eventually, Toothless roused with a displeased groan and turned. Hiccup stared back and didn't have the presence of mind to check his shocked expression as Toothless looked up at him.

Green eyes, weathered skin, freckles everywhere and hair black as night. And very, very _human._

"Toothless?" Hiccup squeaked out experimentally. The bleary-eyed man lying on the ground blinked up at him and moaned a strange affirmative. "Y-you alright there, bud?" Another growl, this one sounding almost like words, but ones that Hiccup didn't understand. The man's face grew confused when he heard his own voice, and turned to alarm after a few experimental non-Norse words. Then, in his confusion, he bothered to look down at himself. He stared for a long moment, and Hiccup wasn't entirely sure what he was thinking. He was about to ask, but then Toothless attempted to move his right leg, and the human body underneath him did it instead.

The screaming wasn't so disturbing for the fact that it was _screaming_ as it was for the fact that it was so _human_. Toothless jumped up and Hiccup wished he hadn't because he didn't know how to work a bipedal body, and stumbled haphazardly, managing to slice open a cut on his calf in the process.

"Toothless, Toothless!" Hiccup waved his arms out like he normally would with a dragon, this time with a human who was _supposed_ to be a dragon. "Stop! Stop, just calm down, bud, it's alright!"

Toothless fell over again, but stayed down, his head flying up to look at Hiccup with wild eyes. Hiccup met them, and there was a pause as they settled, Toothless near to hyperventilation but gaining control over himself slowly. Hiccup forced a reassuring smile and stepped closer. As he did, he finally realized something _else_. His eyes bugged and he looked away.

Of course, dragons didn't wear clothes, so he supposed it made sense (in a strange sort of way that he feared would become typical) that Toothless would be stark naked. Hiccup gave a longsuffering sigh and rubbed his eyes. When, exactly, had his life devolved into messes like this? Eventually, he looked back up at his friend, despite the burning in his face.

"Alright there, bud? What _happened_ to you?"

Sprawled out awkwardly on the ground as he was, Toothless flicked his eyes over to Hiccup. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. He squinted through a very messy mop of hair, his expression a perfect human replica of the look that Toothless had given Hiccup when he'd first mimicked a smile.

"Shhhhhhhhrrrwaaallll…" He tested, moving his lips and tongue around experimentally. He tried to look at his own mouth as he spoke, and ended up cross-eyed (which really looked rather ridiculous) "Loorrrssssssssstarnnngguul." He huffed. "Slllfffff. Ff- ngg. Thhh? Nngg. Hhh. Hhh! Hiiiiiiinnng. Nnng!" He huffed angrily, clenching his fists. Hiccup was watching him with a sort of befuddled expectancy, and Toothless turned big green eyes on his friend, almost begging some sort of help. "Hhhiiiirrrr… hiiiii…chhh..ccckk. Ck! Hiicccccckhhuuuhhh." And then he stopped and pursed his lips, squinting hard. He took a deep breath, and looked directly at Hiccup. Then, all at once,

"Hiccup!" He said, popping the 'p'.

Hiccup stared, and slowly, blinked.

"Hiccup." Toothless said again, making sure he'd gotten it right. "Hic-_cup!_"

Hiccup wasn't sure _what_ do to. But he was beginning to feel a bit faint, so he decided to sit down, across from Toothless, who, in his master's distraction, had drug himself somewhat upright into a sitting position against a rock.

"You can _talk?_" Hiccup blurted suddenly.

The expression that Toothless gave him could only be described as thoroughly offended.

"Well, no, I'm sorry, of course you can talk, I know you talk, you've always talked in a sort of… dragon-y way… I mean you guys obviously must have your own language, but I mean… you can… understand me? You know _Norse_?" And of course in the back of his head, all Hiccup could process was _oh my gods I'm talking to – __**with**__ Toothless, I'm talking to my dragon who is a human oh gods, Toothless is human! Why is he human? What in all of midgard is going on?! _Toothless, immune to his master's fervent thoughts, was concentrating on his own words, muddled as they may be.

"Hhhnnnoortse?" Toothless tilted his head.

"Norse. The language of Vikings. Humans."

"Norse!" Toothless' eyebrows raised. "Norse," he said strongly, and nodded his head. "Hnnuuundersteend. Nnggot eevar ables to spek. Spik. Speak. _Speak!"_ He smiled at his own success and revealed a wide shining row of whites: on the short side, but no less charming when bared.

"You mean you've been able to understand _everything_ I've said? All this time? As a dragon?"

"Unnderstandeden," Toothless nodded. "Nnnot can spek assss dragon. Dragon." Toothless' face grew troubled, and he looked back down at his human self. "Dragon!" He leapt up sideways and started panicking again, legs uncoordinated beneath him.

"No no, Toothless, stop! You'll only hurt yourself! Calm down!" Toothless did, and was once again on the forest floor within seconds, but this time turned to glare up at Hiccup.

"Whhyyyhen ggnoot dragon? Norse. Vi-_kingr_," He moaned confusedly.

"I don't know, bud," Hiccup came nearer, forcing himself to ignore Toothless' nakedness and instead focusing on the blood pouring down his calf. "I was hoping you could tell me. But, right now, you need to be careful, you don't have scales to protect you anymore." He reached out and touched the cut. Toothless hissed and pulled away, looking down to see the blood for the first time. His eyes widened, but he made no noise. Hiccup fetched some water from the lake with the kit he'd brought to eat lunch. Toothless allowed him to wash the wound, and said nothing as Hiccup looked vainly around for a bandage. Eventually, he sighed, looked down at his own clothes, shrugged in resignation, and used his dagger to cut out the seem that connected his sleeve to his tunic. He pulled it off, leaving him awkwardly one-sleeved, and used the material to bind up Toothless' injury. Just as he was tying off the makeshift bandage, Toothless grabbed Hiccup's arm around the bicep.

"What the- Toothless,"

Toothless ignored the protests and laid his arm out alongside Hiccup's, examining the difference in shade, size, and texture. Toothless was several shades tanner than Hiccup, like he'd been living in the sun his whole life, (which, he had) and he was older and leaner, but behind all the differences, it seemed as though Toothless' human form was just as prone to freckling as Hiccup's was, and it was this that Toothless seemed to have noticed most.

"Hiccup, sssssame." He looked up at Hiccup to see if he'd understood. "Ssame. Sprrol…" he huffed, having lost his words. "Spppooots. Spots. Same spots." He pointed, and looked up at Hiccup for an explanation.

"Freckles? Uh, yeah," He pulled his arm away. "Sunburn and pale skin will do that to you," he complained dryly. Toothless didn't catch the humor, and appeared thoughtful instead.

"Same. Same… speecities?" He frowned. No, that wasn't right. "Speeciees."

"Species?" Hiccup asked.

"Species! Der Vi-kingr," He looked excited.

"Species of Viking?" Hiccup repeated dubiously. Toothless nodded, proud to have communicated, but Hiccup shook his head. "Toothless, there's only one 'species' of Viking. We're all human, and there's not really more than one breed of human."

Toothless blinked at him, understanding but _not,_ and his face cleared like this was a cosmos-altering discovery that couldn't possibly be true. He shook his head vigorously. "Nooo. Nooono. Aren _many-an_ Vi-kingr specieees. Aren _bushy browen _vikingrs ander _knotted rellow _vikingrs, ander _thickens dotted_ vikingrs…" It appeared that, in this sort of curious excitement, Toothless' mouth could work more efficiently in Norse, so Toothless proceeded to rattle off a long list of names for various 'Viking species' in quick succession. As he did so, Hiccup realized that the dragons, while learning of their new neighbors, must have classified the Vikings of Berk into 'species' of Viking, much as the Vikings did with the various breeds of dragons. He found himself smiling, and only came out of his internal amusement over the whole idea in time to hear Toothless finish off his listing.

"Ander courses, _hiccupsrn_ vinkingr."

"…Hiccupsorn?" Hiccup was almost afraid to hear the explanation.

"Hiccup."

Hiccup frowned. "I… have my own species?" He asked, not sure if he should be insulted or flattered.

Toothless nodded like it was the simplest thing in the world. "Hiccup issn only off kind," He poked a finger on Hiccup's chest. "One off kind. _Hiccupsrn vikingr_." His mouth quirked up in a grin, and he carefully pointed back to his own chest. "Same, _Toothless_," (he looked proud when he got his own name right on the first try) "Onlyn off species _Nightfurers_ en Berkn, Toothless." He smiled wide again, and the grin was so disarming that Hiccup found himself smiling back.

"Oh. Well…" He sighed, wanting to correct Toothless, explain how Vikings weren't _species_, but then there was that smile, so pleased and friendly, and those _eyes, _bright and full of that happy-to –please fondness reserved only for his best friend. Hiccup couldn't bring himself to correct the misunderstanding. "Right. Species of Vikings. That's one for the books. Now, look…" Hiccup shook himself and turned a serious face on Toothless. "Now that you can talk… more or less… what happened to you, bud? Why are you…" He gestured up and down, "_Vikingr_?"

Toothless squinted hard at the ground, and shook his head. "Nott… remembering. Wass in sleep. Went into sleep in dragonskins, came out of sleep in vikingrskins. Feeled not anything in the sleep, not except… sleep." Toothless' expression was growing troubled again, and breaths were beginning to come shorter again. "Why… why not remembering, Hiccup? Why not dragon? Not remembering, not remembering, wanting to remembering…" He brought his hands up to his head in despair, and made some strange noises like moaning, using the same non-norse words that Hiccup had heard him use earlier.

Just as quickly as he'd descended into his panic, Toothless calmed down again, but did not move from his bent position, head in his hands. Hiccup watched, unsure and tense, as Toothless allowed his new fingers to play through the black hair on his head, and although Hiccup couldn't see the man's eyes, he could tell that he was frowning in concentration, studying his new body in touch and sight. His shoulder blades bobbed and his feet squirmed, but he remained curled up over himself, fidgeting but not really moving, utterly silent, right up to the point where he looked up at Hiccup, and briefly back down at his own naked body, before asking in complete seriousness,

"Is Hiccup looking same _strange_ as Toothless unders vikingr fake-skins?"

It took a few seconds to gather Toothless' meaning (seconds which Toothless took to further examine his strange body) but after Hiccup finally deciphered Toothless' syntax, he closed his eyes and then _he_ was the one bent over with his head in his hands, moaning.

He had the distinct feeling that that it was going to be a long, _long_ day.

* * *

A/N: I have no excuse or explanation.

I think it's something to do with how intelligent the dragons seem, combined with their very human-esque personalities. Of course I've wondered what they might be like as humans, Toothless especially. The dragons are able to speak in the books, and the absence of this interaction is perhaps the only thing I dislike about the movie.

Human Toothless is a really interesting concept to me, but in my experience, fanfic authors only ever turn Toothless into a human in order to use him as a sex object, which is as perverse as it is irritating. Assuming I pursue this story further, I have no intentions of putting any romance in it whatsoever, save for the canon Hiccup/Astrid ship, but that will be a sidenote if anything. Bromance is probable, but really, I started this as a pure character study. I don't even have any idea where the plot would take me.

Anyway. I'm not really sure why I wrote this (much less why I'm posting it) but I'm feeling some potential from the idea, so let me know if you guys thinks it's worth continuing.


	2. I've Got Some 'Splaning to Do

The impossible, Hiccup had decided, liked to set aside time to victimize the innocent. Either that, or it was just extremely bored and took his sorry soul as an easy target.

Toothless had lost some of his chattiness, but was still examining his new body, now more calmly than before. He didn't pay any attention to Hiccup as the young Viking began pacing around the cove, grabbing at his hair and trying to figure out what in all the nine realms he was supposed to do next.

Taking Toothless back to the village was an inevitability. There was no way anyone could survive out here at night, much less naked, much less as someone who'd never been a human before. And yet, there wasn't any good way to bring Toothless back to Berk in his current state. Nudity aside, he couldn't walk. His body was in fine shape and Hiccup had no doubt that his muscles were strong enough to walk and run far faster than _he'd_ ever managed, but Toothless simply hadn't had time to learn the proper coordination.

Hiccup's stomach noisily reminded him of the icing on the cake: neither of them had eaten anything since breakfast.

He felt like he'd hit a dead end when he finally sighed and stopped pacing. He turned to look at Toothless, who was moving his fingers and examining them carefully, picking blades of grass and dissecting them with his fingernails. The wonder with which the newly-turned human admired his own fine-motor skills was enough to bring a small smile to Hiccup's face, despite it all. Toothless only looked up when Hiccup had sat back down beside him.

"We need to get back to the village sometime, you know," he told the dragon –er, human. Toothless looked somewhat frightened at the prospect.

"But… _Vikingr_, Toothless! Wanting _dragon_ back."

"I know, bud, but we can't just… _leave_ you here and wait for your scales to grow back."

Toothless picked at the grass with a bashful, mopey look. "Going back to beings with othern dragorn… Is being… what word… _embarrassing_s."

Hiccup pursed his lips, understanding but knowing he couldn't do anything about what they needed to do. "I know, and I'm sorry, but you'll freeze out here if we don't get back before sundown." He stood to his feet, and Toothless watched him with big eyes. "I'm going back to the house to get some food – and some clothes for you. And…" He paused. A vision ran through his head, of the two of them after dinner, after dressing Toothless decently, of Hiccup trying to drag an uncoordinated Toothless back to the Village. Toothless was at least a foot taller than him, and Hiccup's false foot gave out as the larger man tried to lean on him for support. They were both doubly crippled before they reached the bridge into town. Coming out of the mental scenario, Hiccup shook his head. "And help," he told Toothless. "I'll get Astrid," the name came without thinking.

Toothless paled, obviously preoccupied again with his embarrassment, but Hiccup was surprised by a sudden show of maturity when Toothless simply nodded, and turned his attention back to the grass.

"I'm really sorry about this, bud." Hiccup felt the familiar urge to pet Toothless' head and scratch it comfortingly, but his hand twitched because Toothless was _human_ and that just wasn't right. He grabbed at his trouser leg to quell the urge. "Don't worry, we'll figure something out." But of course Toothless looked so pitiful at that comment that Hiccup couldn't leave him before squeezing him reassuringly on the shoulder.

He left the cove without having to explain the unspoken 'don't go anywhere or do anything stupid' rule to Toothless, because they'd been through that routine before, albeit with more wings and scales and less concerns about Toothless freezing overnight. All the way back to the village, Hiccup's brain was working in overdrive, trying to figure out how in _Hel_ he was going to explain the situation to Astrid, much less how they would negotiate all of this with his _Father_ later on when they brought Toothless back to the house, much _less_ how they'd explain it to the village when he started walking around the plaza.

Hiccup groaned and rubbed his face. He prayed to the gods that, whatever the Hel was going on wouldn't last for long. Something told him the gods weren't listening, that they might actually be the cause for his misery. It was probably Loki, Hiccup thought with some venom, and his own chagrin made him wonder if he'd be struck down right then and there.

He wasn't. So he trudged his way into town and snuck back into his house with little trouble. It wasn't quite dusk yet, and it was around this time his father was out having a tankard with Gobber. Hiccup didn't have any trouble pilfering a few loaves of bread and blocks of cheese (he really didn't feel like cooking, and besides, he was hopeless at starting fires without Toothless' flame). Finding clothes for Toothless was more of a challenge. He'd emptied every single drawer of clothes he owned before he found a pair of trousers that would have any hope of fitting the larger man, and even then Hiccup knew they'd be too short. Hiccup had grown quite a bit in the not quite three years since he'd first met Toothless, but he was still on the small side – he suspected he always would be. Still, at least he'd be able to get Toothless into Berk without scandalizing anyone. In addition to the trousers, Hiccup also took the biggest vest he owned, a thick bearskin winter garment. He packed them away in a basket and strapped it to his back before stealing away to the Hofferson home.

Thank gods it was Astrid who answered the front door. He didn't think he'd be able to explain himself to Astrid's mother, who liked asking questions, particularly of Hiccup. (something to do with Astrid, Stoick had told him once, smiling when Hiccup said truthfully that he didn't understand)

"Oh. Hey, Hiccup," She said, obviously surprised, and leaned against the doorframe.

"I have a problem." He said bluntly. He'd planned out an entire speech to break the news as reasonably as possible, but now it all seemed to fly out the back of his head. His thoughts had a tendency to do that when Astrid was around. When speaking with her, his brain gave him little choice except to say exactly what he was thinking. (If he didn't, she'd end up punching him)

"What kind of problem?" She frowned.

"It's Toothless. I need your help."

She continued to frown at him silently for a few seconds more, casting a look at the pack he still shouldered, before looking him in the eyes again, and shutting the door behind her. "Alright, I'll bite. What's he done now?"

Hiccup drew a long breath and stared blankly for a second. "I don't think you'll believe me," He told her. She crossed her arms.

"Try me."

* * *

At first, she _hadn't_ believed him. When she finally came around, it was still, understandably, a shock.

"Okay. Okay. O… Okay. This is… well, it's, uhm… Okay."

Hiccup's sarcasm would have normally generated a suitably snarky comment to tease her on her uncharacteristic fluster, but at that particular moment, he could only sigh in complete agreement.

"Yeah," he said.

"So… is he… alright?"

"Well, I guess," Hiccup shrugged. "He doesn't know how to walk – that's why I need your help, actually, to get him back to the village. He_ can_ talk, but not very well."

"Wait, he knows _Norse_?!" Astrid sounded just as shocked as Hiccup had been.

"Apparently, he's been able to understand Norse for a long time, but couldn't speak it when he was a dragon. I'm guessing his mouth simply wasn't made for those kinds of sounds."

Astrid gaped for a moment, before shutting her teeth together with a click. After a moment, she turned and asked, "…So do _all_ our dragons understand Norse?"

Hiccup shrugged. It was an interesting thought, but he would have to put off pondering it until later. "Maybe? I don't know. Right now, all I know is that my dragon is a _human_ and I don't know why, and neither does he." He looked up at the sky, where the setting sun was casting the first shadows of dusk. "And we need to get him back before dark."

Astrid nodded and they didn't say much to each other after that, until they reached the cove and Hiccup stopped early, putting out a hand to catch Astrid before she could go any further. "Wait," he said. She shot him a confused look as he let down his pack.

"What's wrong?"

Hiccup pulled out the vest and trousers. "I need to give him these before you see him," he explained. It took a moment for the problem to register, but then Astrid's eyebrows shot up and she nodded and gestured for him to go ahead. She might've been blushing, but Hiccup couldn't tell in the dim lighting.

"Alright, bud, I'm back, now come put these on." He marched into the cove and found Toothless not too far from where he'd left him. The brunette was still playing with grass and rocks and small sticks, but he'd dragged himself into a shrinking patch of sun.

"D-d-d-dinner?" Toothless said, and Hiccup felt awful when he heard shivering in his friend's voice.

"Yeah, but clothes first. Come here, I'll help you."

Toothless pulled up a knee and planted his foot on the ground as if to stand up, but then he thought better of it, and instead crawled over to where Hiccup stood.

"W-w-w-why n-n-eeding fak-k-ke skins?" He asked, trying very hard _not_ to shake from the chill evening, but not able to help it. Hiccup didn't think it was very cold out that night, perhaps a bit chilly at most, but poor Toothless, naked and so used to having a dragon's fire in his belly, was like a pup tossed out in the snow.

"It'll help you warm up," Hiccup told him, although he knew it wouldn't actually help that much. He didn't know if Toothless would even understand human conceptions of physical decency, so he figured reasoning through comfort would work more effectively. He was right. Toothless didn't hesitate, reaching out to the thick fur vest like it would save him. Hiccup helped pull Toothless' shaking arms through the armholes and felt even sorrier for the dragon when he realized that he wasn't even_ that_ cold yet.

The trousers were a more difficult matter. They were too small, as Hiccup had predicted, and it appeared Toothless also had a much harder time moving his legs around than his arms. After an awkward several minutes, Hiccup finally managed to get the waistline up past Toothless' hips and pull the belt tight. Although Toothless looked pointedly uncomfortable, Hiccup was confident it would keep him decent long enough to find a better-fitting replacement.

"Alright, then," Hiccup stood up and sighed, surveying his friend now that he looked somewhat more passable in the 'normal' department. Tight as they were, the trousers didn't look _too_ bad, and the vest made him look more like a typical Viking. "Astrid, you can come on in. And grab my pack, will you?" He called over. Still on the ground, Toothless peered around Hiccup's legs to watch the other Viking come in.

She did so slowly, basket hanging from one hand. Hiccup watched her reaction with some trepidation, and was surprised by the amount of calm she was able to muster.

"Hey, Toothless," she smiled, and Toothless either didn't notice or didn't care that it was forced.

"Azztrid," he said, smiling in recognition. She gasped in surprised when he said her name. She'd been listening to him speak with Hiccup as they got him dressed, but still, being _spoken to _by a creature who really shouldn't have been able to speak intelligibly in the first place was a highly unnerving experience. Hiccup was smiling encouragingly at her.

"Umm… We brought you dinner," She said, lowering the basket and opening it.

"Iss…. Having waterfishes ins it? Is givings at, Toothless?" He crawled over towards the basket and peered curiously inside, and then up at Astrid.

Astrid was staring at him in utter non-comprehension. Hiccup eventually came to her rescue.

"He asked if you've brought him fish."

"Oh," She said, embarrassed for Toothless that she hadn't been able to understand. "Um, no. Bread and cheese."

Toothless had cast a confused look at Hiccup when he'd had to translate. Now, he looked a bit disappointed that Astrid had suddenly understood Hiccup, but not Toothless.

"What beings 'breath' and 'chiz'?" Toothless grumbled, grabbing the basket and sticking his face in it. He found the food quickly, and scrunched up his nose upon recognizing the disgustingly meat-less food the humans so often ate. "Not eatings!" he groaned, flopping back. "Waterfishes, onlys good at, Toothless."

"You won't know until you try it, Toothless," Hiccup said, crouching and offering a handful of sourdough, which he knew had been baked that morning. "Come on, at least smell it. You'll like it, I promise."

Toothless sent him a long glare of skepticism, but took it anyway, because he trusted his human. He smelled the bread once, and regarded it, and then smelled it again, so close that Hiccup thought some crumbs might've gone up his nose. Then, tentatively, he licked it and smacked his lips. His eyes lit up and his lips puckered and he stared at the bread like had come to life. Then, he tossed back his head and stuffed the bread into his mouth, and, stupidly, tried to swallow.

"Oh, gods, Toothless, _don't_!" Hiccup said, jumping forward. Toothless dissolved into a fit of dangerous-sounding choking, and Hiccup scrambled to help. Forcing him to bend over the ground, Hiccup pressed a hand hard up on Toothless' stomach until he spat the bread out and began breathing again. "You have to _chew_, bud, you can't just swallow it whole, alright?" When Toothless had calmed down and began paying full attention to Hiccup, the Viking ripped off a piece of bread and ate it, taking consideration to chew exaggeratedly. "See?" He said around his food, "like this." He swallowed, and smiled at Toothless to show he was no worse for the wear.

Toothless looked accusingly at the next piece of bread that Hiccup handed him, but carefully did as Hiccup had shown him, chewing somewhat oddly and swallowing after. After mastering the art of chewing and reluctantly conquering his skepticism over the taste of cheese, Toothless and the two Vikings ate their fill together under the dusky orange sky. By the time the food was gone, Toothless was shivering in bursts, despite the warmth his new vest offered him.

Astrid had been quiet during dinner, playing spectator as Hiccup took the lead in helping Toothless. After dinner, however, she was the first to look up at the darkening sky and stand. "We need to get going. It'll take a while with him, I'm guessing," she said. Hiccup nodded and turned to Toothless.

"Right there, bud, you ready to learn to walk on two legs?"

It did, indeed, take a while.

Toothless seemed excited to learn at first, but after falling down three, four, five, times, he began using increasingly halted Norse to express his distaste for human anatomy, the sensitivity of human feet, and for his situation altogether. Eventually, it devolved from Norse completely into that nameless, guttural language that Hiccup had heard him speak before.

They'd been trying to help Toothless walk somewhat on his own so far, until Hiccup noticed that Toothless' (now wordless) frustration had festered to the point that there were tears forming in his eyes, which in turn caused him more confusion and, in turn, more tears. Hiccup sighed.

"I'm sorry, bud," he told his taller friend gently, "Let's just get you home, alright?" Nodding to Astrid, Hiccup wrapped his arms more fully around Toothless' back and pulled Toothless' arm taught across his shoulders. Astrid did the same and, with Toothless now strung between them, assumed a quicker walking pace.

Hiccup had forgotten how far the cove actually was from the village, but after hauling Toothless to the edge of town, he and Astrid were both panting from exertion, and his shoulder was aching horribly from where Toothless had to lean to keep himself upright. The dragon-human in question had said nothing the entire way, and was looking down with incredible embarrassment as he allowed himself to be carried by his Viking friends.

Hiccup wanted nothing more than to crash into his house, crawl upstairs and collapse until he at _least_ caught his breath, but he knew that wouldn't be an option. His father would be by the fire, probably just finished with his supper, and would have _plenty_ of questions when his son stumbled through the door with a poorly-dressed, immobile stranger slung between him and his girlfriend.

The mere thought made Hiccup sigh. _He_ was having a hard enough time understanding the situation, he couldn't begin to fathom what horrid time Stoick would make of it. Stoick wasn't stupid – Hiccup hadn't inherited his brains from nowhere, after all – but for all his strategic and managerial wisdom, Stoick was a reputedly blunt individual, with little tolerance for the unexplained or mysterious.

If anything, Hiccup thought, Toothless turning up as a human being definitely qualified as unexplained _and_ mysterious.

"Look," Hiccup huffed to Toothless, "I know I'm tired, you're freezing, and Astrid needs to get home. But we'll have to do it sooner or later So… here goes nothing."

Readjusting Toothless' weight on his shoulder, Hiccup reached out and pulled open the back door to his house. His eyes immediately and reluctantly settled on Stoick the Vast, who turned his head at the noise. At the sight of the stranger, the chief stood.

"What in Thor's name…"

"Uh," Hiccup shuffled inside, and Astrid juggled her hold on Toothless to close the door behind them. "…Hey, dad," Hiccup smiled lopsidedly, knowing that it wouldn't help even a little bit. "I can explain, really," he reassured, and then blinked with he thought better of it. "I think."

* * *

A/N: Thanks for all of the positive feedback! Since writing the first chapter, I've actually gotten a few ideas for a plotline. It won't be anything too wild or adventurous, but should provide a nice arch for a character study. No telling how many chapters there will end up being, but I will be continuing this.

Thanks again for reviewing, everyone!


	3. Snippets

A/N: I highly suspect that this chapter and others will devolve into drabble-like collections. I WILL HAVE PLOT IN THIS STORY. However, like I've said, a large part of this story is simply a character study. I've got lots of snippets in my head, and instead of wasting time trying to fit them together with stupid filler stuff, I'm going to jump around to them as they seem to fit, and plug in the important plot points as I go. So. Enjoy!

* * *

Time had healed a number of wounds between Hiccup and his father. And yet, whenever they really got to fighting, the fray was just as spitfire as ever. No matter how different they were, Hiccup had inherited one pillar of his personality from his father: stubbornness.

"You expect me to just… _believe_ that this… this stranger is your _dragon?!_"

"Would I lie to you?"

"Would you lie to yourself? Hiccup, you don't know-"

"I do know, he's Toothless,"

"But _how?!_"

"I'm not exactly sure, but we'll figure it out, but in the meantime, we need to help him out with this mess,"

"What, you expect me to house some stranger under my roof? A stranger you discovered in the woods?"

"I _told you_, he's not a stranger!"

And so the argument continued. It was a loud and repetitive affair, and Astrid was looking rather bored in a corner. Toothless, on the other hand, was standing uncertainly against the wall, small as he could make himself, looking guiltily down at the floor like it was all his fault.

Eventually, Astrid stepped in between the warring males, putting a hand out to each. "Would _both_ of you just stop for one minute?" If it'd been any other person, the Chief and his son would have most likely ignored them, but it was Astrid, so they both froze on the spot and stopped talking. "Hiccup, give your father some time to _think_, for Odin's sake, it's a lot to take in. And sir," She turned to the Chief, tone slightly more formal (but no less aggravated) as she told him, "Please, hear him out. I know it sounds crazy, but I saw it for myself. He _is_ Toothless," She glanced over at the dragon, whose big eyes glinted in the firelight before he turned them away.

Chief and son looked at each other with begrudging frowns, and Astrid stood between them like a longsuffering mother arbitrating a toddler fight over a toy. "Now," She said diplomatically, "since we've all heard each of your arguments tenfold by now, why don't we let Toothless have a word on the matter?" They all turned to the figure in the corner.

Toothless didn't have his expressive ear flaps anymore, but his dark hairline shot back in a sudden burst of fright. He looked up at the three other humans, mostly at Astrid.

"It's alright, bud," Hiccup said encouragingly.

"I-i-isss Toothless," He said, glancing at Stoick. "Hiccup finds in humanskins after napings, not understanden whyne."

Stoick was squinting at the newcomer. Hiccup intervened.

"He said that he is Toothless, and that I found him as a human after he woke up from a nap. He doesn't know why it happened."

Stoick stared for a long, silent moment as he studied Toothless. Toothless fidgeted under the scrutiny. Usually confident and sure of himself, he seemed sheepish in a human body.

"When did he learn to speak?" Stoick asked.

"Today. I think." Hiccup glanced at Toothless. "He told me he's been able to understand Norse for years, but has never managed to speak it before."

"He's not very good at it."

Toothless shot Stoick a hurt look.

"Not _yet_. I thought it'd I'd try to teach him, after he learns to walk correctly."

"What, you're planning on keeping him like this that long?" Stoick turned to his son.

"Well, we don't exactly have a choice! I don't know what turned him into a human, and I sure don't know how to turn him _back!_ We can't count on it being a quick process. And until then, I think it'd be a good idea to make sure he can live as normally as possible."

Stoick sighed. "Right." He stared long and hard at Toothless, and eventually took a step toward the former dragon. Toothless was tall enough to look Stoick straight in the eyes, but his wiry build seemed insignificant next to the wall of muscle and beard that came up crowding in his personal space.

"If you really are Toothless," Stoick said quietly, "answer me this: that day, at the battle, when I thought Hiccup had died, and you saved him, what did I say to you?"

Toothless was looking straight into his eyes. In the back of his mind, he was contemplating how _odd_ it was to stand nose-to-nose with the chief rather than slightly above him, but more immediately, he was preparing his words so that he could say them as clearly as possible. "'You brought him back alive. Thank you for saving my son.'" There was an accent, but Toothless' voice was clear enough to send the entire room into silence for a moment.

Eventually, Stoick stepped back and nodded. Hiccup and Astrid were watching the exchange with interest. Hiccup in particular looked impressed that his friend had suddenly mastered pronunciation. It wasn't to last long, of course. "I'm sorry this happened," Stoick told Toothless, looking him up and down. "I'll see to it we get you some new clothes."

Toothless shifted and cleared his throat. "Thankings,"

Stoick nodded. "Keep this quiet for now, until we figure this out." he turned to tell the two teens. "Hiccup, you get him set up to sleep somewhere. Astrid, I'll walk you home." He put out a massive hand on Astrid's shoulder, and led her out the door. She turned and smiled at the two boys behind her, trying to be encouraging.

Once the door was closed, Hiccup sighed. "Alright, bud. Let's see if we can get you settled for the night."

* * *

The days following were eventful, if not long and rather stuffy, cooped inside the house as they were. The first problem to address was the problem of clothes. Stoick had managed to get some clothes made for Toothless specifically (although how he'd managed it without questions remained a mystery – Hiccup supposed it was a perk of being an intimidating Viking chief). Soon, the dragon-turned human was sporting a pair of black leggings and blue tunic that Hiccup had to remind him to lace up correctly almost constantly. Although he'd been given a pair of boots, he much preferred to roam the world barefoot. Astrid had suggested trying to braid his pitch-colored hair back in braids to keep it from his face, but it wasn't really worth trying. Toothless' mane was not short, but not long enough to hold a braid more than a few knots. It stuck up at bizarre angles and had the tendency to change direction every few minutes.

In addition to clothes, Hiccup was pleased to find that, so long as he had a full belly and a night's worth of sleep, Toothless was a far better student when it came to walking. Having accepted his situation at least for the time being, Toothless was determined to master the skills he would need to be a human.

The day when he'd finally learned to take steps on his own was also the day when they'd discovered Toothless' human laugh. It was a hearty, lilting laugh that actually made Hiccup stop and stare, because it was so _Toothless_ but so _human_ that he wasn't sure what to make of it. It was pleasant on the ears, and when Toothless took another successful step and laughed in glee again, Hiccup found himself beaming, too.

"Walkings! _Walkings, _Hiccup!" He cheered happily, and then had to dive sideways in order to keep his balance.

"See, I told you you could do it." The Viking smiled.

And soon, Toothless was walking just as effortlessly as anyone, and then jumping, and then running. He was a very fast runner, they'd discovered, and enjoyed racing. He'd raced Astrid over and over until she could run no more (he continued to bounce around her anyway). He'd raced Hiccup once and won by metres, although more often than not, Toothless enjoyed walking with Hiccup more than running past him.

Once, as Toothless sat by the fire, Hiccup noticed that the ex-dragon was staring at him as he moved around the room.

"What are you looking at?" He asked. Toothless looked up at him, face serious. "Is Hiccups hard at walkings?" he asked, and glanced at Hiccup's legs. The Viking suddenly understood, and he glanced down at the prosthetic leg that Toothless had been studying for the past several minutes.

"Sometimes," he said. "I had to relearn at first. But it's easy, now."

"Toothless learning at walkings with two leg on _once_, but Hiccups learnings _twice_. Hiccup being better walker more then Toothless," he said.

Hiccup felt a warm feeling wash over him. Toothless was obviously athletic. He was quick, and springy, and fascinated with movement. And he'd called Hiccup _better_ than him. Because of a handicap. Hiccup couldn't help it when he smiled.

* * *

Toothless spent a good deal of his free time experimenting with his hands. Hiccup hadn't really given much thought to the fact that Toothless' finest articulation as a dragon had been his mouth, but he supposed fine motor skills were an entirely new phenomena for him. Dragons had wings and tails that defied gravity; Humans, he supposed, had hands that allowed them to do things that no other creature could. So Hiccup indulged Toothless' curiosity. He taught him how to snap his fingers, how to handle books. He taught him how to hold a charcoal pencil, showed him how he studied his surroundings and drew pictures from them. He even taught him how to write his name in Norse Runes (albeit sloppy ones).

"Why not vikingrs never understandingsen at Toothless?" Toothless had asked him at the time, charcoal smeared on his hands and face.

Hiccup had been wondering how he'd end up addressing the problem. He supposed now would do as well as any time. "You understand Norse well, bud, but… your speaking is kind of hard to understand. You haven't got all the pronunciation and grammar right," Hiccup said.

"Oh." Toothless looked down at the parchment he'd been experimenting with, and eventually back up. "Hiccups can teaching at Toothless?" he asked, hopefully. His success with walking and moving hands had encouraged him to be more open to learning. Hiccup smiled.

"Sure."

* * *

For all the progress that Toothless made, there were plenty of accidents. Some more humorous than others.

There was the night when Stoick had been planning to roast salmon for dinner. Toothless had spotted the fish before it'd been cooked and, like he always had, went at the thing raw. The offensive taste had him spewing out in non-words for a while, while Stoick growled about messing with his dinner, and Hiccup tried not to laugh. He'd been so traumatized by the experience that he almost refused to eat the cooked version later on. But, after some coaxing, he'd eaten his share of the fish and enjoyed it. Still, he tended to look at raw fish with a sense of betrayal after that.

A less humorous escapade had been when Hiccup had accidentally dropped a cooking pike into the fire at dinner. Toothless, trying to be helpful, had gone to retrieve it. When asked about it later, Toothless would moan that he'd forgotten that humans didn't have scales, and pound his feet in pain and frustration as Hiccup bound up his blistered arm with salve and bandages. It took nearly a month to heal. Toothless had begun to watch Hiccup differently after that. Eventually, he'd asked why.

"I forgotten how break-able vikingrens are," Toothless had explained. His Norse was improving, but far from perfect. "Hiccups have burnined his skins many times, not moaned." He looked at Hiccup. "Hiccup musts be more braver than Toothless."

The comment made Hiccup pause. Toothless was rubbing the sore edges of his healing burn, and Hiccup thought of all the times he'd been working in the forge and burned himself, just to hiss and move one. Toothless' had been the target for stray coals and flames all the time, but he'd never complained. It appeared that he was only now discovering what it was to be vulnerable to flame.

"Not braver," Hiccup had told him, "just a bit more used to it." But on the inside, something told him that this, all of it, the walking, the running, the eating, the burning, it was all healthy. Good. Progress toward some goal. What goal, he wasn't sure. But he was excited to see where it'd take them.

* * *

Hiccup was used to sleeping with cold feet and hands.

Toothless was not.

Not to long after Toothless had learned how to walk, Hiccup had awoken one night to complete blackness, with the unshakable feeling that he was being watched. His eyes scanned the dark shadows of his room, and he rolled over. He turned to the other side of the bed only to meet eyes with Toothless, whose face was only a few inches away, where he had presumably been staring at the back of Hiccup's head.

"What the-" Hiccup jerked back awkwardly. "Toothless, what are you_ doing?!_"

"Cold." He said quietly. "I are cold."

_Am. I AM cold,_ Hiccup's newfound inner grammar teacher wanted to correct, but he only sighed. "I'm sorry?" He offered. "I'm cold, too. It's always cold up here."

Toothless blinked. "…Always?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Toothless looked down. This was unacceptable.

"You, shares?"

"What?"

"Shares warming."

Hiccup blinked at the non-dragon. "Toothless, this bed is _not_ big enough for both of us."

But Toothless didn't hear, and went over to the pile of furs where he'd been sleeping, and picked them all up in a massive armful. He plopped them all at once atop Hiccup's bed (with Hiccup still in it). He took up one of the larger fleeces and wrapped himself up in a cacoon and curled up at the foot of Hiccup's bed, which left an odd portion of the mattress for Hiccup to sleep in, smashed against a mixture of furs and bony joints that fidgeted to find a comfortable spot.

"Now, less colds." Toothless hummed through a smile. Hiccup sighed, but knew there was no use arguing.

He did suppose he was a _little _ less cold than before. So if the neck-cramping sleeping arrangements became semi-regular in their nighttime routine, Hiccup wouldn't complain.

* * *

Hiccup had never really thought about what a fat dragon would look like. Not that Toothless was a dragon at the moment. And _definitely_ not that he was fat.

Well, maybe a bit.

It was something that Hiccup hadn't noticed when he'd first stumbled upon Toothless in the cove. The ex-dragon was tall and lean, with defined shoulders and arms, and calf muscles that bunched healthily beneath a layer of hair and freckles. But around his middle, disguising the abs that Hiccup was sure he had, was the slightest layer of pudginess.

It wasn't something that Toothless was ashamed of or even noticed, obviously. He'd grasped rather quickly that it was imperative that he keep his trousers on at all times (although he grumbled about them itching) but he liked taking his tunic off from time to time for the sake of comfort. It was one such time, as he was lounging about playing with a pencil, that Hiccup noticed that Toothless had slight pudginess around his middle and along the sides of his back that seemed to contradict the muscles that moved clearly around his shoulderblades.

Then, Hiccup recalled to mind images of Toothelss wolfing down fish, hunting sheep and chicken across the island, rolling about in the dragon grass and napping in the sun. Well, it wasn't as though Toothless had lived any sort of _demanding _lifestyle. Hiccup laughed to himself.

Toothless heard, and looked up. "What?"

"Oh, nothing, bud. It just makes sense." Hiccup continued smiling. He never explained himself, so Toothless merely shrugged and went back to what he'd been doing.

* * *

"I am _boring_," Toothless moaned.

"No, you're _bored_," Hiccup corrected automatically.

"_BORED_."

"I'm sorry, bud."

"We could goes to cove?" Toothless looked hopeful.

"No, you know how dad is. He doesn't want anyone to know about… this." He gestured to Toothless.

"Vikingrs already askings where I am," he said, and it was true. Hiccup only had so many excuses left to burn before he'd have to spill the truth. He picked at the wood floorboards he was wallowing on. "I don't likes being _vikingr_," He pouted like a toddler.

"We'll find a way to turn you back eventually. Dad says I should go talk to Gothi about this, but she hasn't been letting anyone into her house for a week. Something about meditations of some sort. I think she just likes the excuse for peace and quiet. But don't worry. As soon as I can, I'll go up and ask her about it."

Toothless was lying on his back with his arms crossed, glaring at nothing in particular.

"…And I'll ask dad if you can at least go outside sometime soon."

"…boring," Toothles said again, rolling over. Hiccup sighed.

"_Bored_."

* * *

A/N: I did not proofread this chapter at allll! So feel free to let me know how many typos I made. Hope you enjoyed it, despite it being disjointed!


	4. Sassy Pandemonium

Of course, it couldn't last forever. When Gothi finally came out of hiding and Hiccup was able to smuggle Toothless up to her hut when no one was looking, Hiccup didn't allow himself to harbor any particular hopes. A lifetime as Hiccup the Useless had conditioned in him a resolute strand of pessimism. Toothless did not have the same problem, so when they reached Gothi's house and Hiccup explained the situation, Toothless remained hopeful despite the air of anxiety. He watched the elder's face with attentiveness and an underlying will to please, even as she took in Hiccup's tale with a puzzled, intense expression. When Gothi looked Toothless over and motioned him into an inner room, barring Hiccup from following, Toothless remained resiliently optimistic, even shooting Hiccup a smile over his shoulder as Gothi ushered him away.

Hiccup wasn't exactly sure how long he waited, but eventually, Toothless re-emerged from the meeting, Gothi following closely. He looked solemn, and the silent ancient woman behind him reached up to pat him comfortingly. Hiccup smiled and stood, preparing to ask questions, but before he could manage a single syllable, Toothless had brushed past him and through the doors. Now frowning, Hiccup tossed a last look at Gothi, who looked sad, and rushed after Toothless.

"Hey, bud, wait up!" Hiccup was having trouble with his leg on the rocky path down from the cliff-top hut. Toothless continued a ways before stopping, his back still turned to Hiccup. "Toothless?" The Viking asked, coming up carefully. The other man's shoulders gave a jerk, and then another, and when he started making strange gasping noises, Hiccup realized that he was crying. Toothless was sobbing, even though he was trying very, very hard not to. "Hey, hey," Hiccup said soothingly as he came up to him, touching his arm. "Woah there, bud, what on earth did she say to you?"

"Wh-why," Toothless' voice was deep from the tears, "why does hurt?" He was bent over slightly, and was touching his eyes and rubbing his own tears between finger and thumb. "Why… _hurts,_" he moaned, confused and unable to stop the erratic sobs.

"Just… tears," Hiccup muttered, wanting to explain but needing to know, "Toothless, what did Gothi say to you?" He'd never had to comfort a grown man who was crying, especially one who'd never had the experience of crying before. He did reach up and brush Toothless' hair away from his face, because it was blocking out his eyes.

"S-s-stuck," Toothless sucked in a shuddering breath, "doesn't know what happens. Doesn't know whaaaaa-how to f-fix. S-s-s-s-stuck, Toothless is s-s-_stuck_!" He wailed harder.

Hiccup didn't know what to do. Part of him, that immovable pessimism, had anticipated the outcome so that he wasn't entirely shaken by the news. But seeing Toothless so distraught made Hiccup feel terrible for being unsurprised. He sighed and rubbed Toothless' back, knowing it probably didn't help much. They needed to get Toothless back to the house, so no one could find him out here – let alone in tears.

Thankfully, the road to Gothi's house was a secluded one, and the sprint from the edge of the cliffs to the back door of the Haddock house was short enough for no one to notice. When Hiccup burst through the door directing a teary-eyed Toothless toward the stairs, he'd had to pause and give a quick explanation to Stoick. The chief might've shared some pessimism with his son, because he didn't say anything when he heard. He only sighed, and looked at Toothless somewhat apologetically, and rubbed at his temples. Hiccup got Toothless up into his room and sat him down on the edge of his bed.

"Toothless," he said, but got no response. "_Toothless_, look at me." The former dragon did, through red-rimmed eyes. He allowed his expression to turn slightly perplexed, because looking _up_ at Hiccup was an entirely new experience. "Toothless, do you remember…" Hiccup stopped and looked sheepish, like it was hard for him to talk about. "You remember when you and I first met? How you couldn't fly?" Toothless did remember. He loved Hiccup too much now to remember that his misfortune had been completely Hiccup's fault. He sniffled.

"Yes," He said.

"Did you ever think you'd fly again?" Hiccup asked, very kindly. Toothless blinked up at him.

"…No," He confessed. Hiccup would never learn that Toothless had never told anyone that before, not even the closest dragons. Hiccup smiled, very slightly, and nodded at his friend, strong and steady.

"You _will_ be a dragon again. I promise." He gave the bigger man's arm a squeeze. Toothless let himself look directly into Hiccup's eyes, and they stayed there for a while, trying to understand why Hiccup's face seemed so much…_ more_ now that he was human, too. "Alright?" Hiccup asked him. Toothless sniffled again and looked down at Hiccup's hand on his arm, where calluses and freckles looked clearer, up close. This was the one who'd saved him, who'd fixed him. Together, they'd always done the impossible. He nodded his head.

"Yes," he said, because he couldn't recall the words for 'thank you'.

After that, Toothless found himself drained, and couldn't help it when he fell asleep on Hiccup's bed. He woke up sometime later, and it was dark outside. He was covered in furs and hogging the whole bed – Hiccup was nowhere in sight. He could hear him, though, breathing steadily, not really snoring, somewhere nearby. Toothless carefully pulled himself upright and looked around. Human eyesight was nearly useless at night, he'd learned, but in the moonlight he could just make out the sleeping form on the floor. Hiccup, sans his fake leg, was lying on top of an impromptu bed of furs, but had only his vest to keep him warm. Toothless looked down at his own bedding guiltily, fingering the multiple furs that, by all rights, belonged to Hiccup. Quietly, the dragon tiptoed over with an armful of fur, still warm from his own body, and draped it carefully over his master.

* * *

After it became clear that Toothless would be staying in Berk as a human indefinitely, new measures were taken. Stoick gave Hiccup permission to construct a more permanent cot for Toothless, and while Stoick put together the finer points of how he was going to explain this whole fiasco to the village, Toothless dedicated himself with renewed vigor to perfect his grammar.

It was an odd experience for Hiccup, watching as Toothless grew more and more proficient with language. From their first interaction onward, something about Toothless' near unintelligible syntax and bad grammar had planted a seed of presumption in Hiccup's mind that he didn't really notice until now. He'd somehow allowed his mind to equate Toothless' poor speaking skills with low intelligence. Of course, he'd never believed that Toothless was stupid. As a night fury, Toothless had always demonstrated an extraordinary sense of perception and intelligence, but something about the lack of human communication had always allowed Hiccup to put Toothless on the same level as one would a dog, or an especially clever horse. But now, as Toothless was finally mastering language and expanding his vocabulary every day, it was becoming clear that Toothless was not merely intelligent on the level of understand things and making logical connections. He was just as mentally engaged as any human, and now that he finally had the right words to express it in ways that humans could understand, Hiccup had discovered something else.

Toothless was _sassy_. And pretty damn witty, too.

Granted, a great deal of Toothless' humor was utterly wasted on Hiccup, because it depended on jokes made in dragon culture, and puns made on common phrases in the language of the dragons. But most wit (and most sass) Toothless was able to translate without too much trouble. Perhaps the sharpest beginning of his wit appeared one night around the dinner table as Hiccup was dishing out portions of trout for their dinner. As he tried to move some from platter to plate for his father, the fish went flying off and onto the floor. Hiccup apologized profusely, and from across the table, Toothless could see Stoick roll his eyes in a way that told him this was at least somewhat typical.

"Sorry, it, uh, flew away from me there," Hiccup was saying. Toothless almost laughed.

"I would tell you to fly after it, but you humans are rather clumsy on your own," he smirked.

Father and son both stopped what they were doing and turned to stare. Toothless said nothing, and the silence went on for bit until finally, Toothless put out his hands. "what?" He begged. Hiccup burst out laughing.

Toothless_ did_ understand why Hiccup was so amused. A basic understanding of the Norse language had been passed down for generations among dragon societies, and after years living with Vikings, Toothless had come to understand enough about Norse to follow everyday conversation and yes, humor. But for Hiccup, who to a week and a half ago didn't know dragons could talk_ at all_, let alone in a language Hiccup could understand, the whole idea of dragons making jokes was novel and entertaining. In fact, it became a bit of a game for the young Viking, of watching Toothless closely enough that he wouldn't ever miss any witty comeback that came out of his mouth.

He'd learn quickly enough that there was enough sarcasm, wit, and sass hidden beneath that unassuming, loyal exterior to last Berk a lifetime. Or more.

"I didn't know that eating was a competition," he'd say, watching Stoick eat his dinner. (Hiccup would have to keep his father from punching him)

"If you earned a scale for every time you tripped, Hiccup, you'd be a dragon by now. Only I wouldn't let you fly. You'd only fall again."

"Do _all_ Vikingr keep pet whales," he'd ask Hiccup one night when Stoick's snoring grew particularly loud, "or just you?"

But perhaps even odder than Toothless' witticisms was the juxtaposition between his newfound eloquence and his relative ignorance. It was the smallest, simplest things that got his mind in a knot, and more and more, Hiccup kept forgetting that he simply didn't _know_ these things.

Case in point, Toothless had once asked, in all seriousness, if Viking children hatched from eggs and, if they did, why no dragon had ever laid eyes on one. In retrospect, Hiccup supposed it could've been a whole lot worse, but at the time, giving an explanation was awkward because it was just one of those _things_ that humans didn't need to ask about when they were adults.

There was also the matter that Toothless was still more or less hopeless at dressing himself. Hiccup had the daily challenge of locating that _one thing_ that Toothless had forgotten about in his morning dressing routine. His tunic was on inside out, or backwards, or both, or he'd suddenly forgotten how to work his fingers correctly to tie up his trousers, and, oh, was he _always_ supposed to wear undergarments? It was a never ending battle, and somehow, now that Toothless spoke like a man and not a child, it was even more maddening.

He still liked studying himself. Hiccup didn't ask too many questions anymore, because he'd learned that Toothless was merely curious about how the human body worked. He'd wiggle his toes and watched how they moved, examine his own teeth in a polished shield, play with his eyebrows and run his fingers through his hair. Whenever Toothless grew bored, he was prone to jumping, stretching, and seeing exactly how flexible various bits of the human body were by bending in strange ways that left Hiccup wondering for his friend's sanity.

Finally, the day came when Stoick allowed Toothless outside in the open, and the plan was simple: if anyone asks, tell them the truth. If they don't ask, say nothing. It sounded simple enough, Hiccup hoped it wouldn't spark pandemonium. 'Hoped' being a key word in his thought process.

Toothless practically skipped from the door when he was finally released, and Hiccup followed nervously behind. Astrid was the first person they saw (mercifully) and she seemed rather shocked to see Toothless out and about. The dragon-human charged her with a massive smile in place and held out his hand, but had to pause and glance back at Hiccup for confirmation. Hiccup nodded and waved his hand demonstratively, and so Toothless turned back around and waved his hand enthusiastically at Astrid, even though she was only a few feet away.

"Hi, Toothless," She gave a tiny wave back, "you're… out," She seemed uncertain, glancing from side to side, fearing that someone would see him.

"Yes," Toothless confirmed, now bouncing up and down in his excitement. Between the movement and the breeze, his black head of hair was working itself up into a puffball. "Stoick said I may come outside with the Vikings," he was smiling, "is so exciting!"

Astrid had to smile at him. She'd been visiting periodically to check up on the Viking-dragon duo since 'the change' as they'd dubbed it, somewhat dubiously. "That's great… um… Hiccup," She turned a concerned look at her boyfriend, who still stood behind Toothless, "Is this a good idea?" she pointed at Toothless.

Hiccup shrugged, like he wasn't entirely sure, himself. "Uhh, well, dad seemed alright with it."

"What are you going to tell people?"

"…The truth?"

Astrid stared, and shook her head, and eventually shrugged. "Well, alright."

* * *

Naturally, it just had to be _the twins_ who found out first. Hiccup had taken Toothless for a tour of the docks (they were largely abandoned this time of day, in this season) and had fun explaining the various bits and bobs of sailing mechanics to someone who didn't already know. It was one of those things that everyone on Berk just _knew_, and although Hiccup had always found some of the mechanical physics an interesting study, since most Vikings were already experts, Hiccup had never had someone to talk with it about.

He'd been so caught up in explaining ropes and pulleys and masts and sails to Toothless (who did actually seem genuinely interested, if not a bit overwhelmed,) Hiccup failed to notice that the Thorston twins were working maintenance on their father's boat not too far away. It was actually Toothless who looked up first, ears drawn by their bickering. Before Hiccup could turn and see them, Ruffnut punched her brother in the face so that he pitched to one side. When he looked up, it was right at Toothless. He rubbed his face and righted his helmet.

"Who is _that_?"

"What?" Ruffnut came over to the rail, shading her eyes. "It's Hiccup, you _idiot_,"

"Not _him_, the tall one."

"I've never seen him before."

"Hiccup's found a stray Viking!"

"And he's _hot_," Ruffnut added. Tuffnut sent her a disgusted look and shoved his hand in her face.

"Shut up, you _sister_. Hey, Hiccup!" Tuffnut saluted, just before Ruff rebounded from his shove and punched his shoulder so his hand had to retract.

"Uh, heeey, guys…" Hiccup waved awkwardly.

"Who's your friend?" Tuff asked. Hiccup winced visibly.

"Well, aahhhh…" He cast a look back at Toothless, apologizing silently, but Toothless didn't look fazed. "It's… well, Tuff, Ruff, this is… Toothless."

Their faces were blank for a split second.

"Well that's _stupid_," Said Tuff, "Who gets named after a _dragon_?" Ruff seemed to be working through a different line of thought, but paused to smack her brother.

Hiccup sighed. "No, it's not… he's not named _after _Toothless, he… _is Toothless_."

The blank faces returned, this time with a glaze of slow processing, and then, eventually, of revelation. Hiccup was scrambling to come up with some explanation – any explanation, really – for whatever questions came spewing out of their mouths, because there were so many obvious problems with _Toothless being human_, he wasn't sure where they'd want to begin.

In the end, he needed have worried at all, because of all people on Berk, the Thorston twins were notoriously short-sighed when it came to radically _awesome_ things like dragons showing up one day as humans. (And incredibly _hot_ dragons, as far as Ruff was concerned). So when the revelation finally dawned and they both drew breath, it wasn't really for questions.

"Wow!" Tuffnut screamed, launching himself over the railing of the ship and bounding over to them. "How did you manage _that_?!"

"Does he _talk_?" Ruffnut appeared beside them.

"How long have you been keeping this from us?"

"That is so _cool_,"

They crowded in on Toothless, and the poor man looked rather overwhelmed, if only because the two trouble makers had seemed so much smaller and less imposing when he was a dragon. Hiccup came to his rescue and shoed the two away.

"Stop, stop, give him some room. We're not really sure what happened, it just… he's been like this for two weeks, or so,"

"One week and one half, actually," Toothless corrected helpfully. Hiccup winced, because he could've predicted what came next.

"OH MY GODS!" Ruffnut exclaimed, coming closer.

"He _does _talk!"

"That is… Hiccup, you have the _coolest dragon ever_."

"Do it again, do it again," Tuffnut begged, looking up to Toothless with expectation. Toothless stared him down for a moment, confused.

"Um," He said, "…hello?"

"Yeaah!" The twins turned, high-fived, and headbutted each other, knocking helmets out of place. "That is so _wicked_,"

"They will never _believe_ this,"

"I have to go tell Fishlegs about this," Ruffnut said excitedly.

"Not if I get there first."

"What?!" Hiccup's eyes flew wide. "No, nononono, guys, don't-" but the twins were beyond hearing, already bounding up the ramp to the village.

"Hey! Get out of my way!"

"I was here _first_, go find your own ramp,"

"You don't own the ramp, idiot."

"I can still push you off,"

"Oh, man…" Hiccup ran a hand down his face. He turned to Toothless. "Bud, I'm so sorry, I didn't know they were here, or that they'd… do…" he looked back over at the Thorstons. "…that."

Toothless was silent, and watching the retreating siblings with a thoughtful expression on his face. At length, he said,

"It is well known among my people that Zippelbacks possess a great deal of intelligence due to the fact that they have two brains to sharpen each other's ideas." He watched the twins for a moment more, wincing slightly when Ruffnut punched her brother hard enough to send him off the edge of the ramp, where he caught himself and swung, cursing and yelling before righting himself. Toothless shook his head and looked back down at Hiccup. "I do not believe it works the same for those two."

Hiccup stared for a moment, and then snorted into a laugh. "No," He rubbed his eyes, "no, not really." He brought his head back up and sighed. "Come on, we might as well stop them sooner rather than later. By the time they make it to Snotlout, you'll be seven feet tall with black skin and six ears."

Toothless was frowning as Hiccup led him back along the docks. "Can humans _have _six ears?"

Hiccup had _hoped_ that this wouldn't lead to pandemonium, but then, what else would sum up his life at the moment?

* * *

A/N: I feel like I've advanced Toothless' learning (in terms of language) a bit fast, but I have a bunch of ideas for this fic that more or less rely on the fact that Toothless can carry an intelligent conversation without so many mistakes. Don't worry, I'm planning on keeping his language distinct from the others, with some mistakes and overall awkwardness with some phrases and such.

And he's out in the real world! This should go over well. Hope you enjoyed it!


	5. Dragonese

The fact of the matter was, once everyone learned about Toothless, it _wasn't_ that bad.

There wasn't any screaming. There was little cursing, no banishment, no cries of the gods and their vengeance, not even too many murmurs of supernatural disasters. There was, however, whispering. And slowly, not all at once, the village began to hide; not really outright, perhaps without even noticing they were doing it. They wouldn't go near Toothless, or even Hiccup. The teenagers didn't seem to mind at all, and some of the children. Gobber was equal parts disturbed and intrigued by Toothless, and Stoick, of course, was housing him and feeding him. But most of the adults, the leaders, the parents and warriors, all shied away from the strange dragon-turned human that now roamed their streets.

Still, Hiccup felt a little bit betrayed. He felt sorry for Toothless, because the former dragon obviously noticed that his condition had scared most of Berk. He didn't say anything about it, but Hiccup could tell that it bothered him. "It's alright, bud," He reassured one afternoon, "we'll find a way to turn you back, and everything will go back to normal." When Toothless said nothing, and didn't even smile, Hiccup's confidence faltered. They walked back to the house in silence.

* * *

The day after the twins incident, Hiccup ignored the palpable unease in the village and took Toothless out for a stroll on his way to the smithy. They passed many dragons on the way there. Toothless would peer at them nervously, wondering if they'd somehow recognize him. Once it became clear they hadn't the slightest idea that this new human was, in fact, their night fury friend, Toothless began watching them differently. Hiccup realized after a while that he must be evaluating what it was like to see dragons from a human perspective.

Toothless also kept making faces at noises the dragons made. Once, they passed a nadder who was chasing a flock of terrors, all squawking loudly, and Toothless actually laughed out loud. Hiccup could agree their antics were amusing, but he wasn't really sure what was _that_ funny.

When they arrived at the smithy, Hiccup went to work as usual. Toothless looked around the shop, for the first time able to ask questions and receive answers about all the complicated processes involved in blacksmithing. He was very mellow through the whole thing, although Hiccup noticed sometime through the morning that Toothless stood well away from the hot fires – he'd begun to suspect that Toothless was developing a phobia of fire, after a few incidents burning himself. Hiccup couldn't really blame him. After a lifetime of wearing fireproof scales, Toothless probably felt more vulnerable than ever.

At one point, Hiccup was working on a particularly large chunk of metal – what would become a new figurehead for a ship – that needed a great deal of sculpting on a large scale. It called for a great deal of heat, which he had trouble achieving on his own. Like he had a few times in the past, he'd enlisted the help of Astrid's nadder, Stormfly, to get the job done. Nadders had the hottest fire of all known dragons, and the steady, precise stream proved rather useful in keeping large amounts of metal molten but not completely melted on the anvil. As Stormfly crowded the smithy to help, Toothless tried very hard to pretend like he wasn't there, if only so the other dragon wouldn't notice him and figure out his identity. He watched his human and his friend work on the project together for a while. He actually winced whenever Stormfly let out a stream of fire. Hiccup was _right there_. His hands couldn't be more than a foot away from the flames. How could he _do_ that, just sit there by the heat and not flinch away? Toothless had always thought humans, Hiccup especially, were a bit on the crazy side, but after becoming one, he decided they were near suicidal. Did they even realize how fragile they were?

It was as if his thoughts could affect the scene in front of him. Toothless didn't see exactly what happened, but one moment, Stormfly let off a stream of fire, and a heartbeat later, Hiccup screamed and dropped what he was doing to the ground.

"Hiccup!" Toothless shot up and Stormfly shut her mouth. Toothless rushed over immediately. "Hiccup, what has happened?" He found Hiccup hugging his hand, which was red and inflamed. Hiccup hissed over his injury, and looked up at Toothless wordlessly before rushing to submerge his hand in the barrel of cooling water. Still by the anvil, Toothless was seeing red. It was an accident, he knew it was, but did that nadder even _know_ how much that hurt? She had no _idea_ how fragile these humans were, how much they felt. She probably though Hiccup was being overdramatic – all the dragons thought so. Even Toothless had thought so – _everyone_ knew that humans liked to complain. But in the past days, Toothless had come to understand from firsthand experience. Humans didn't overreact, they really did hurt _that _ understood, and the fact that Stormfly didn't made him mad. He forgot himself.

Hiccup watched in utter bewilderment as Toothless rounded on poor Stormfly and began yelling. It took him a moment to realize that Toothless wasn't speaking in Norse. It wasn't nonsense, though. He was speaking in a language, alright, but it wasn't like any language Hiccup had ever heard spoken before. Stormfly's eyes were wide, and she was frozen, staring and listening at the dark human beneath her.

Once Toothless' tirade settled, Hiccup called tentatively, "Toothless?"

Stormfly echoed the noise with a sound that sounded very similar – it could have been the same question.

Toothless' hairline fell back in a clear expression as he realized what he'd just done. He tossed Hiccup a desperate look that told the Viking he hadn't meant to do that, to explode, to speak in whatever language he'd just spoken. Stormfly seemed to have understood him, and she was looking at him strangely, now, with an agitation Hiccup hadn't ever seen in a dragon. More and more, he was beginning to realize how very _human _these beasts really were behind their scaly faces.

"I… Hic…" He stopped when Stormfly squawked at him. He flushed bright red, turned, and ran.

"Wait, Toothless!" Hiccup called, forgetting his hand (his arm was now soaked halfway up the sleeve) and charged after his friend, still in his smithing apron. Toothless was at the house by the time Hiccup caught up. "Toothless, what was that?" he asked, shutting the door behind him. Stoick was out, it seemed.

Toothless wouldn't look at him. He looked down at Hiccup's hand, and said, "Does it hurt badly?" He asked, frowning. Hiccup shrugged. He would normally gloss these things over, if it were his dad or his friends. But he'd learned not to lie to Toothless, because in his new environment, the fury needed honesty in all things.

"Well… yeah," Hiccup admitted, although he didn't want to.

Toothless went over to a chest and pulled out a medical kit, which he'd become relatively familiar with over the past weeks. He sat down with Hiccup and did the best he could bandaging his friend's burnt hand.(thankfully it was his right hand, not his dominant left) Hiccup had to help here and there, but Toothless was becoming adept with his hands and thumbs.

"Toothless, you spoke to Stormfly," Hiccup said. Toothless didn't say anything. He might not have noticed that he'd pursed his lips closed, and Hiccup thought he might not yet understand the small nuances of natural human body language, or how to know when he was speaking with it. Hiccup pressed on anyway. "I remember… you spoke something similar when I first found you." Toothless glanced up for a second, but looked away quickly.

"The language of the dragons," Toothless said quietly. "I shouldn't have."

"But… Humans can speak the language of the dragons?" Hiccup was confused. Something in him had figured that, because dragons could not speak human languages, humans would be unable to speak dragon languages. It only made sense, or so Hiccup thought.

"You sound surprised. The human voice is the envy of many creatures, Hiccup. Your kind has a great vocal range, if not limited on some ends."

Hiccup absorbed this. "And… but obviously Stormfly was surprised. I suppose not many humans speak it, huh?"

"Dragonese?" Toothless asked, and shook his head. "There are stories, old legends, from the far eastern countries, in mountains far away that I have never seen, of great human men and women who learned to speak dragonese. They are revered in our cultures, even if their stories are ancient, and not all true. A human fluent in Dragonese is unheard of in modern times." He looked sheepish. "With Stormfly… I forgot my human voice. You were hurt, I was angry at her for burning you. I did not think."

Hiccup wanted to say something else, but the words stopped on his tongue as Toothless tied off the bandage and stood to his feet. He looked glum. "She has told all the dragon kinds by now," he said somewhat mournfully, and looked into the fire for a moment before saying quietly, "I hope they do not hide from me as the vikingr." He shuffled away, and crawled up the stairs quietly.

Hiccup followed him up sometime later with lunch – roasted trout and peppered potatoes. He set a plate down by Toothless along with a cup of diluted ale. Toothless eyed it, but he didn't look inclined to eat, or do anything at all.

"Toothless," Hiccup said, taking a bite of potato out of his own plate, "do you think… could you teach _me_ Dragonese?"

Toothless turned his head to stare at Hiccup. Hiccup thought he might ask a question, _why_,but he didn't, he just looked at him, big green eyes studying him carefully. A moment more, and with a blink, a smile spread itself over his face. "_Géa,"_ he said.

"What?"

Toothless smiled at him. "Yes."

* * *

Astrid came over sometime later. She saw Hiccup's hand, and he explained the morning's events to her, including how Toothless had spoken in Dragonese. She encouraged Toothless that he ought to go to the dragons and explain his situation. For all they knew, one of the dragons might have heard of something like Toothless' situation happening before, if not have some idea on how to help get Toothless back to normal. It was better than the leadless ambition they were running on at the moment. Hiccup agreed, but Toothless looked sheepish and unwilling to go. Eventually, the humans coaxed him to at least agree to think about it. He did, and looked a little defeated.

Hiccup took his mind off of it by asking more about Dragonese. Toothless taught him many words. Yes, no, day, night. Dragon, human, Viking. Hiccup's name translated at _Gicpa_, while Astrid's stayed the same. Of course, Hiccup asked what Toothless' name in Dragonese was, but he wasn't expecting his friend to falter.

"Well," He said, "as you know it, it would be _Tóðléas_."

"As I know it?" Hiccup frowned. Toothless shrugged.

"It is not the name I kept before we met."

Hiccup blinked, and asked quietly, "What _is_ your name?" He'd almost called him Toothless there at the end.

"_Æ__ðelin_," Toothless told him, just as quietly. He hadn't heard anyone say it in a long time.

"What does it mean?" Hiccup asked, because all names had meanings. Toothless ducked his head.

"Roughly translated, it means 'prince'."

"Oh. And… were you?"

"A prince? Well." Toothless shrugged. "It's the closest translation, I suppose."

Hiccup's mouth fell slightly open, and he stared. He felt like he'd opened a door into a whole new world about his friend. Toothless stole a sideways look at his friend, and smiled shyly when he saw Hiccup's gape-mouthed expression. "Before I came here, I was not very unlike you, you know. Son of the _foreládtéow_, heir set to lead the _weyr_ one day. I did not, perhaps, have the same difficulties you have had here in Berk, but I would never say we are different from each other, _Gicpa._"

Hiccup looked down at his lap, trying to process everything he'd learned. Toothless was a prince – son of a _foreládtéow_, which Hiccup guessed meant 'chief'. That meant he had a tribe out there, somewhere. A family. A father. Hiccup's head spun. He'd only just begun thinking of Toothless and the other dragons as intelligent and complex like humans – now, he was learning about a life he'd lived beside but never known until now, of someone he cared very much about. Where could he possibly start? "Why did you leave them?" Hiccup asked, "your _weyr?_" Toothless bit his lip.

"I did not mean to, I suppose. My kind do not enjoy travelling for long days, but we can if we need to. I had gone from the island where we lived to visit the mainland – better hunting there – and was caught in a storm, and thrown off course. I was pulled in by the Queen's presence – I believe you Vikingr call her the Red Death – and could not leave. I do not know how long I stayed in these waters, serving her, I know it was years." He frowned, as if he'd had a thought that he hadn't had in a while. "I suppose my _weyr_ must have thought I was dead, by that time. Then, you knocked me out of the sky."

"I'm sorry about that," Hiccup said impulsively. Toothless' eyes darted to him and he shook his head.

"No," He said. "No, you cannot say that, _Gicpa_, _ðu níet ne áhogian-_" he stopped himself, realizing his mistake. It seemed that discussing his past and the dragon tongue itself drew out Toothless' mothertongue. "You must not remember it that way, Hiccup, in shame," he corrected carefully. "You saved me. I know you think only of the tail I lost. I was mad about that at the time, because I thought I was going to die. But then, I got you instead." He smiled. "I never think of the tail any more, you should know. Not even when we can't fly."

Hiccup suddenly couldn't talk, because there was a lump in his throat that he couldn't swallow. He was blinking rapidly, and looked down before Toothless could recognize the tears in his eyes. (he was far too observant to miss them) "You said we were the same," Hiccup said from where he was looking down at his lap. "I saw it before. When I found you. After I… well, you know. When I was… I did _plan _ on killing you." He was looking anywhere but at Toothless. "I'd been trying to for a long time, I don't know if I've ever said. But then… When I saw you, I thought you looked a bit like me." He stole a glance at Toothless, who was watching him patiently. He looked away quickly again. "Scared. Alone."

Toothless gave a long, slow nod. "I had not realized that I was either, until I saw it in your face, after you cut me free." Hiccup looked up to him. Toothless paused, and gave a stern frown. "That was an incredibly stupid thing to do, you know."

Hiccup actually laughed. "And I thought Dragons were supposed to _always_ kill vikings," he said.

Toothless shrugged. "You were not a Viking."

Hiccup actually felt insulted. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"That day, you were not a viking, and I was not a dragon," Toothless looked up as he spoke. "We were only ourselves, and we were like each other."

There was a long silence, until Hiccup looked over at his friend and wrestled with his tongue until he could say, _"Æðelin." _He was sure he'd pronounced it wrong. Toothless didn't care, and he smiled wide enough for his cheeks to crinkle away half of his eyes.

"_Gicpa_," he replied, and his voice sounded lower than normal, but happy. The two looked at each other, straight in the eyes for the first time since their conversation had started. Toothless said softly,_"Ic þē þancas dō_," For whatever reason, from the way he said it or by some strange intuition, Hiccup didn't need to ask what the words meant.

_Thank you_.

* * *

**A/N:** Well, delving into some more serious conversation between Hiccup and Toothless, which, honestly, is mostly why I started this fic in the first place.

Eagle-eyed linguists among you may notice that I'm using Old English for Dragonese. I know, I _know_ the Dragonese of HtTYD has been laid down by the lovely creator Cressida Cowell, but I while I definitely respect its canon-osity, I just find that Old English gives me more versatility and, without trying to sound disrespectful, sounds less silly than the book Dragonese.

If you're wondering why I chose Old English, of all languages, there are several reasons. 1) it's a dead language so I can't offend anyone by butchering it, unless of course they're Old English scholars of some sort, in which case I offer my sincerest apologies, because I know my usage is probably indecipherably bad. 2) It's a language that is not Norse, or related to Norse. I was tempted to use a smaller Norse-Germanic derivative, like Faroese, but again with the offending people by butchering. Also I figured I ought to pick a language that was more foreign to Hiccup. 3) Finally, having established the need for a non-Norse language, I figured, what the heck, the Vikings hated the British, and the Berkians and Dragons used to hate each other, why not give Toothless the language of the Viking's historical rivals?

I actually already know what the next chapter will be about, and am rather excited about it. It may be up soon because of this.


	6. Again, With Feeling

A/N: Just so you know, there's a whole bunch of drama and mush coming up. I hope you guys are okay with that.

* * *

Hiccup hadn't woken up screaming in a long time.

It'd been years since he'd lost his leg, and in those years, his body had healed itself well enough that his leg no longer bothered him. He remembered those long nights, those first months with his amputation. He remembered them because he'd wake up moaning or crying, because his body was attacking itself. The webbing of nerves in his leg would all light themselves ablaze, his muscles twisting and pulling against residual bone that wasn't as dulled as he'd believed it was. Every layer of his limb hurt, and sent him impressions of the memory of exactly _how_ he had lost his foot. He'd been unconscious when it'd happened, of course, but his nerves remembered. To a bunch of touchy neurons, it was a moment frozen in time: the impact, the break, the fire, the bite, the crash, the cutting, the stitching. It was a moment to be replayed again, and again, and again, and _again_. Between the grief that came to all amputees and the pain and the sleepless nights, Hiccup was sure he'd been the most glum, ghostlike hero Berk had ever seen, those first months.

But it'd been years now, years since his leg had replayed the pain of a subconscious memory. It was behind him. That's what he believed. So perhaps, that's why it hurt even more than he remembered.

It was springtime on Berk, but spring and winter liked to war over their turns until summer. Coldsnaps, heat waves, hail, snow, rain, lightning – Berk got it all during the spring. The older vikings claimed it was the gods reawakening and fighting off the frost giants so that they could not create an eternal winter. Frost giants aside, Hiccup thought that they were just showing off.

Since his first year as an amputee, Hiccup had known to expect what Gobber referred to as 'springtime twists'. Amputees tended to be extra sensitive to changes in the weather (Bucket was a prime example) much like the elderly with bad joints. Gobber complained of them sometimes, rubbing his arm and grumbling when he walked. When Hiccup first experienced them, he understood. The pain could be sharp, or achy, or dull, or throbbing, but mostly, it was just _annoying_. It came and went with the changes in the weather, and Hiccup didn't let it put him down _too _much. Still, every year, at some point he would stop and would yell at the sky to just settle the Hel down, for one second, please and thank you, so that his leg might stop –literally- getting on his nerves. It'd been an annual routine for four years, now. But between the fourth and the fifth year without his leg, something had happened to turn the springtime twists into springtime monsters.

Hiccup, small as he'd ever been, had finally hit his growth spurt and shot up like a reed. It wasn't so bad during the winter, even as he grew and grew, because the weather was constant, if not cold. But the spring showed him no such mercy. Between the growing pains and the twists, Hiccup was taken off guard by the pain. It wasn't constant, or even all that _common_. But unlike in years past, Hiccup had learned that that year, the pain was no longer confined to 'the twists'. There was no threshold where it would stop. It might stop at a dull ache, or a one-time shot along his bones - But it might decide to shoot all the way up his back, to take away his breath, to cramp up his muscles and not let go until he was crippled all over again. The pain itself, intense as it might be, usually only lasted a few minutes at a time, but the fear of sudden attack and the uncertainty of when it might strike made Hiccup even more uptight than before, which made the attacks worse.

It really shouldn't have been a surprise, then, that he'd eventually wake up like this.

Of course, Toothless had been human long enough to see Hiccup when he was having an attack of the twists, but Hiccup hid pain well. Toothless didn't fully understand why his friend sometimes stopped mid-step and grabbed onto something hard, and stared tight-jawed at nothing for a few minutes before limping along like nothing had happened. He tried not to worry about it, because he was still learning about humans, especially an odd one like Hiccup. He watched, but didn't ask questions.

But then, after a long, hot, dry week, a huge thundercloud rolled into place over Berk. The temperatures dropped like a stone, and brought torrential rain down with them. Thor had a field day with the night, but most vikings could sleep through it. Most.

Toothless had been sleeping patchily because of the storm, but sometime during the night, he awoke not because of the thunder, but because of something else. It was a noise… a _human_ noise. Through the dark room, Toothless saw Hiccup toss in his bed. He heard another groan and realized it must've been _Hiccup_ making the noise. While in sleep? Frowning in confusion, Toothless perked his head up to look and saw Hiccup tossing around his bed, jerking now and again to bring his knees up to his chest.

"Hiccup?" Toothless called uncertainly, not sure of a way to determine if his friend was awake or not. Lightning flashed, and for a moment Toothless could see Hiccup's face, eyes closed, brow tense. "Hiccup?" He called again, stepping over. Hiccup's unconscious groans were growing worse, and then he actually yelled, and it made Toothless jump. "Hiccup," He said, scared as he came over, "Hiccup, wake up," Because he knew that the boy must still be asleep. He was clutching at his leg, and that was when Toothless realized what was wrong. He remembered from years ago, how Hiccup would wake up in pain because of his leg. As a dragon he hadn't understood how something could hurt when it wasn't there anymore. As a human, Toothless was no more certain than before, but he'd come to understand how sensitive human bodies were. Surely, it was like fire. "Hiccup, you need to wake up," He said, and reached out to grab Hiccup's arm. Not because of Toothless, Hiccup screamed again. "Hiccup!" Toothless was growing worried.

That's when the door opened and Stoick came in the door. He'd taken off his armor and helmet to sleep, and looked less huge and intimidating than he did during the day. Toothless turned to him, looking worried and frightened. Stoick didn't say anything, but after he saw Hiccup, sighed and came over. Toothless moved out of the way.

"Hiccup, son, wake up," Stoick grabbed the boy's shoulder in a massive hand and shook gently. "_Hiccup_," Lightning cracked, and Hiccup awoke with a start, doubling over himself to grab at his leg. Stoick gently stopped him, because he knew it wouldn't help. Hiccup groaned.

"Dad," He said, realizing that he wasn't alone. "Dad, it hurts so much," He said, sounding like he was ready to cry, still delirious from sleep and unexpected pain. Stoick could do nothing but put a hand on Hiccup's shoulder. "W-why does it-" he was cut off as another wave hit him, and he leaned over himself with a moan. By the time it had passed, Hiccup _was_ crying. He punched his bed hard. "Five… bloody years," He said, muffled from how he bent his head, "Why won't it stop?" He tensed up again and let out a choked growl, angry but broken. "_Why_ won't it just _stop_?" He yelled again as the muscles bunched painfully against his will. He bent his stump underneath him, trying to find a way, any way to alleviate the pain, to no avail. As he cried and yelled angrily at the nerves that had betrayed him, Stoick held him as comfortingly as a Viking father could, and Toothless watched, horror-struck.

He couldn't move his wide eyes away from Hiccup, not even a little bit. They strayed to the boy's teary face and to anger in his fists, and then to the thing that'd caused it all, his leg, which Toothless didn't need daylight or lightning to tell him still bore scars from his dragon teeth.

He'd done that. Hiccup yelled again. He'd done _this_. Feeling small and wretched and sorry but unable to say why, Toothless shrunk back onto his sleeping mat, into the shadows. From there, he watched in silence as Stoick sat with his son who suffered because of a black dragon that was now cowering in a human skin in the corner.

Every time Hiccup groaned or yelled, Toothless could only stare at Hiccup's leg, and think back at how he'd lost his own tailfin. It had stung the first few days, but had never bothered him after that. He'd known dragons who'd lost limbs or wingtips before, and they had suffered little lasting pain, much as he had. He'd naïvely thought that vikings were the same, especially after five long years.

Hiccup screamed again, and Toothless wanted cry, or hide, or both, because he'd thought wrong. He'd been hurting his best friend all along.

* * *

In an uncharacteristic move of compassion, Stoick left quietly that morning and let Hiccup sleep in as long as he wished. This left Toothless to his own devices for the morning, which was probably a horrible idea.

For a while, Toothless stood at Hiccup's bedside, not wanting to force him awake but not wanting him to remain sleeping, either. He blinked at him for several long, awkward minutes, until he eventually sighed and took himself back downstairs.

He sat quietly in Stoick's chair for a while, (it was the most comfortable in the house, and since the chief was away Toothless couldn't be slaughtered for sitting in it) fiddling with his fingers and looking through a book Hiccup had been using to teach Toothless how to read. A loud gurgling noise interrupted him, and Toothless looked down to stare at his stomach, which had started feeling empty and somehow _moving_. Humans experienced hunger differently than dragons did, Toothless had learned, and tended to get more irritable because of it. He sighed, because he hadn't the slightest idea how to prepare food for humans. He knew where Stoick kept his foodstuffs, but he wasn't sure what to do with any of it.

He went to the kitchen pantry now, unsure but hungry, and looked around. He knew Hiccup always used fire to heat things – _cook_, Hiccup had called the process. And there was generally solid foods served with liquid foods, and sometimes and in-between stuff that roasted in a giant pot.

He could've just grabbed some of the bread or smoked meats that Hiccup often ate right off the shelf – But Toothless thought of Hiccup still lying asleep upstairs. Surely he would be hungry too, when he woke up. Looking around at the stores of food, Toothless eventually started grabbing things.

It couldn't be _that_ hard, could it?

* * *

Hiccup woke up with his nose twitching, because his house smelled weird. But he was a Viking. Weirds smells were only weird if you let them be, so he groaned and rolled over to go back to sleep. He heard sizzling, too, but not really the type of sizzling that indicated cooking. Maybe the house was burning down. Hiccup didn't care. He dozed for a while, until he heard footsteps on the stairs. His door opened and someone stepped inside. It didn't _sound_ like his father, so it must've been,

"Toothless?" Hiccup asked groggily, rolling over.

"You are awake!" Toothless smiled, and the dragon's wild bed hair and the fact that he'd put his shirt on inside out and forgotten his belt (again) distracted Hiccup enough that he didn't notice the tray balanced in Toothless hands until the dragon nearly dropped it.

"What…" Hiccup frowned and worked to sit up as Toothless recovered the tray before it fell and walked to Hiccup's bedside. "Toothless, did you… did you _cook lunch?"_ Hiccup wasn't sure whether he should be impressed or terrified.

"I was having hungry,"

"You can't have hungry," Hiccup corrected as he rubbed his eyes.

"Oh," Toothless blinked. "I _was_ hungry," he said, and Hiccup knew that he would never repeat the mistake again.

"Did dad leave or something…?" Hiccup looked at the plate, not entirely sure what kind of food he was looking at.

"Yes," Toothless told him, "he left early this morning. I do not know if he ate, but if he did, he did not make a big meal."

"I see," Hiccup said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. When he saw Hiccup's stump and remembered the night before, Toothless felt bad all over again. He extended the tray towards Hiccup as a peace offering of sorts. Hiccup blinked at it.

"…For me?" He asked. Toothless nodded. "…Why?" He asked, because he could've just waited for Hiccup to get up and cook something, or just eaten some bread and cheese to hold him over. Toothless looked down almost guiltily, and Hiccup didn't understand why the dragon's eye caught on Hiccup's leg.

"I'm sorry," He said quietly. Hiccup frowned.

"W-what? What for?"

Toothless fiddled with the sides of the tray and looked sheepishly at Hiccup's leg. "It still hurts you," He said. Of course Hiccup knew what he was talking about, because he remembered last night well (he was even still a tad sore) but he wasn't sure how Toothless' guilt factored it.

"…So?" He asked. Toothless looked up at him, eyes full of apology and hurt.

"I did that," He said horribly.

Suddenly, Hiccup understood. He remembered standing over Toothless that first time. _I did this_, he'd said to himself. He felt a rush of emotion, the same feelings that came whenever he saw the scars his bola had ripped into Toothless' skin.

"No," He heard himself say shaking his head. "No, Toothless, don't think like that. I mean… I mean you did – but… I hurt you too, bud, but it's okay, it's like you said, you don't think about it anymore-"

"No," Toothless wouldn't look at Hiccup, "_I_ don't. But you do. You hurt. A lot. Often. It has been five summers and you still hurt. Because I… I bit…" He froze and wouldn't finish. Instead, he said, "I never hurt after the scars healed over. Dragons do not feel the pain of losing wings and legs, not after they are gone for good. Humans are different. You feel much more than we do. I did not understand this when I grabbed you… I… I _knew_ I might take it off," He sounded close to tears, "I didn't realize that it would hurt even after. I am sorry." He looked again at the miserable meal he'd prepared, and blushed suddenly because he realized how miniscule a compensation it was.

"Toothless…" Hiccup was nonplussed, and couldn't say anything for a moment. He wasn't sure why he chose to ask, "What do you mean, we _feel_ more than you do?" Toothless frowned as he tried to find a way to explain.

"Human senses are very dull, compared to dragons," Toothless told him, still not looking up. "Your eyesight his terrible, as is your sense of smell, hearing… you cannot detect changes in weather well, and cannot sense _cáfnes _at all," Hiccup didn't bother to ask what _cáfnes_ was, "but your sense of touch, of _feeling_, is unlike anything I have ever had before," Toothless told him honestly. "You humans are picky about where you sleep, what you wear, where you go and how you treat those close to you, and especially how you deal with injuries. As a dragon, I thought it was just because you were odd – all dragons did. I did not understand, it is because your skins are so sensitive, it is because you _feel_, much more than I had ever imagined."

The room was silent between them for a moment. "Yeah, I guess we do," Hiccup said after a while.

But what could Toothless say? That, if he had known, he would have let Hiccup fall into the fire? That he would have somehow saved Hiccup's leg? (which would've been near impossible) that he would have somehow treated Hiccup better, or differently, or somehow _done something better_ than what he'd been doing for the past five years?

Toothless looked ready to make any of these excuses, but Hiccup didn't want to hear them, because there really wasn't anything to apologize for. Humans feel more than dragons, Toothless told him. _Yes,_ Hiccup thought to himself, _they really do_. So he scooted as far forward on the bed as he could without his prosthetic to support him, and reached up to take Toothless' tray of messily-cooked food and set it aside. Shakily, he stood on his good foot and reached out to Toothless for support. After that, he half pulled and half fell, and then he was hugging the taller boy tight around his middle.

Toothless was frozen, arms out, eyes wide. He wasn't surprised by the hug. Hiccup had hugged him dozens of times when he was a dragon, he'd seen vikings hug before. But he'd never been human in a hug before, never _felt_ a hug before. He blinked over and over again and it did nothing to change the full feeling in his chest. It felt like sunshine, but better. Hiccup's hair tickled Toothless' chin, and he was holding on so tight that Toothless could feel him breathing, but it only made the full, warm feeling stronger. Toothless knew that he would never be able to explain the feeling to another dragon. But he wasn't a dragon. Not right now. Slowly, hoping he was doing it right, he brought his hands around Hiccup and hugged back. He felt Hiccup's cheeks smile against him, and he wondered how a person could _feel_ a smile, but then, it must've been a human thing. So was this warmth, and the comfort, and the sudden sense that everything would be alright.

Pain like Hiccup's leg was a human thing. And it was horrible, and awful to see, and it made Toothless feel guiltier than if he'd _meant_ to take the leg off, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

But hugging was also a human thing. And as he stood there, arms around his longtime friend, trying to identify this new sensation in his core, Toothless realized what Hiccup was trying to tell him. Intense feeling of touch was, indeed, a human thing. But not all feelings had to hurt. Sometimes, things could feel like _this_. Toothless had only ever felt Hiccup's hugs through thick, scaly skin, but he realized in that moment that whenever Hiccup had hugged him in the past, _this_ is what his human felt. The warm feeling found its way to his face, and he wondered how such a good thing could make him want to cry.

Toothless was a human. He had been for weeks. But now in a familiar gesture with a familiar person in a familiar way that felt so entirely different, for the very first time, Toothless _felt_ like a human, too.

* * *

A/N: Just so you know, _cáfnes _means 'energy'. I had this idea that dragons, much like sharks and some snakes, have a sense of electricity or maybe even infra-red that gives them a sixth sense, which of course Toothless would miss as a human.


	7. Speak

"_Gebrædan_," Toothless said, enunciating slowly. Hiccup was doing his best to concentrate.

"Ge… wait, _what?_" He was already trying to remember enough Dragonese words to make his head spin. The fact that Toothless was still learning to read and write (it would've helped tenfold if Toothless could write the words out for Hiccup to memorize) didn't help.

"_Ge-bræ-dan_," Toothless said again patiently. They were sitting cross-legged across from each other on a fur rug by the fire. Hiccup's head was in his hands, and Toothless was doodling in one of Hiccup's sketchbooks, mostly runes that he was trying to write correctly. They'd been at this for hours.

Hiccup sighed. "_Gedyngan_?" he said experimentally. Toothless looked up at him suddenly, eyes wide.

"…Right?" Hiccup asked apprehensively.

Suddenly, Toothless snorted. Then, he collapsed to the floor in laughter.

"What?!" Hiccup demanded, spreading his hands. "What'd I say?!"

Toothless had an arm holding his stomach, and couldn't speak for his laughter. Hiccup had never seen Toothless _giggle_ before, and under any other circumstances, it would've been amusing to watch, but at that moment Hiccup felt only annoyance.

"N-no," Toothless managed through his laughs, "No, that wasn't…" he burst into giggles again. Hiccup was glaring, although the dragon didn't seem to notice.

"What did I say?!" He asked again angrily.

Toothless rolled himself over to sit up again. His face was red from laughter, and he was fingering his tears in confusion. "Why…why does everything make humans cry?" He asked, and shook his head, still giggling a bit. "Oww, it hurts…" He laughed some more and bent over himself, holding his gut. Hiccup sighed.

"Well then stop, and tell me what I did wrong."

Toothless cleared his throat, trying to stop laughing. "If I told you…" giggle, "If I told you what you just said, you would never let me give you lessons again."

Hiccup frowned. "Wait, what _did_ I say?"

"I'll tell you eventually, when you won't be embarrassed to death, or else that's all you will remember." He smiled. "Now, try it again."

And such were Hiccup's adventures in learning Dragonese. He had a much harder time at it than he would have liked, especially with the verbs. Still, Toothless assured him that he was an incredibly fast learner.

"Not as fast as you," Hiccup had pointed out.

"But _I _already knew Norse," Toothless told him.

"Debatable."

Toothless chose not to comment, but he did blush slightly. "But you had never heard Dragonese until now. Well, I mean, you have _heard_ it, as much as you have been around me and the other dragons. But you did not know that it was a language until lately."

"Will I be able to understand Dragonese, spoken by a dragon?"

Toothless blinked. "Well," he said seriously, "I hope so." They shared a look, and Hiccup knew Toothless was thinking of whenever he would regain his dragon form. The thought of being able to communicate with his friend, even as a dragon and in another language, warmed Hiccup's heart.

"Still," Hiccup said, "I'd think it'd sound a bit different. Do you think that the other dragons would let me practice with them?"

Toothless looked away at that point, because he knew where this conversation was leading. Hiccup and Astrid had been attempting to get Toothless to go talk with the other dragons for days, now. He'd become something of a hermit in his refusal, and hadn't left the house except to fetch water for over four days. Hiccup thought it was pride. Toothless was as nice, friendly, and fun a dragon as a friend could ask for, but he was still a night fury at heart. Night furies were proud creatures. Toothless was terrified of the other dragons judging him because he was stuck as a human, Hiccup had come to conclude. He was _embarrassed_.

"Come on, bud," Hiccup persuaded. "This really can't last forever." He laughed. "You've cleaned the whole place like five times, already." And it was true. In his hermitage, Toothless had used his energy around the house to do what would normally be Hiccup's chores, much to Stoick's delight.

Toothless sighed, and looked away still. Hiccup pursed his lips. "Tell you what, we don't even have to go out to the ring," which is where many of the dragons roosted when it wasn't being used, "we'll just go out to the forge, I'll show you how I make saddles, like I promised. That sound good?" He asked.

Toothless was biting his lip, looking adamantly at the ground. Eventually, he sighed heavily, and nodded.

_Finally_, Hiccup thought.

* * *

And so, that was just what they did. They hardly met any dragons on the way, either. Toothless relaxed in the forge quickly, especially because leatherwork did not involve flames. Hiccup showed him how he picked the right leather for the right parts of the saddle – thick, sturdy cuts to fit by the toughest scales of a monstrous nightmare, and thinner, softer straps to wrap around a nadder's soft underbelly. Toothless seemed intrigued by it all, and pleasantly surprised, like he hadn't known how much thought and consideration Hiccup put in to tailoring flying gear to every dragon. He'd attempted to help, but Hiccup wouldn't let him use the leather knives to cut pieces, he couldn't coordinate an awl very well, and after fifteen fingerpricks, needles were out of the question, too. So eventually, Toothless sat quietly arranging the leather pieces in the right way so that Hiccup wouldn't have to shuffle them around as he awled and sewed them together.

Hiccup had been about to deem the afternoon a success and head back home when Fishlegs appeared.

"Hiccup! Hiccup, you have to come see! I taught Meatlug a new trick to do next time we go flying! I can show you over in the-" he stopped as he stepped into the forge and saw the two other boys. "Oh," he said, suddenly a bit sheepish, "Hi, Toothless," He gave a small wave.

Toothless tentatively waved back. Of all the other vikings, Fishlegs had always struck him as intelligent, but scatterbrained in a confusing way. He was never sure what to make of him. Still, the blond smiled a bit wider because the dragon-human had waved at him.

"A new trick, huh? What kind of trick?" Hiccup asked, smiling but not looking up from his work. He didn't notice when Meatlug came buzzing in the door, but Toothless did. He froze, hoping beyond hope that the gronkle wouldn't see him.

"Yeah, yeah, it's awesome! She does this spinny thing, and I can lean to one side so we do sort of a _dive_ thing, but then it's kind of _sideways_ and you have to come see! We were just practicing out with the others!"

Hiccup was looking at Fishlegs and nodding, and saying something, too, but Toothless wasn't listening. Meatlug's eyes had wandered over to him and widened. "_Tóðléas?" _She asked. Toothless glared, unsure if what he was feeling was more parts anger or fear.

"Alright," Hiccup was saying, getting up and brushing off his knees. "I'll bite. You said everyone was out at the ring?"

"Yeah, we stopped for lunch, and I came to get you. Where have you been, anyway? We go out flying every day, but you haven't-" The bigger boy stopped and blushed when he realized what he'd said. He glanced at Toothless. "O-oh, I mean, uh..."

"It's okay, 'Legs," Hiccup waved the comment away. "You go on ahead, I'll just put this away and we'll be there in a bit."

"O-okay," Fishlegs muttered, "…sorry, Toothless," he tacked on in an undertone, and turned away. Meatlug's eyes continued to follow Toothless until he glared at her hard enough so that she turned away.

"I will _not _go with them," Toothless growled, still glaring at the gronkle as she buzzed away.

"You will," Hiccup said, just as firmly. He was stacking the saddle bits together in a box so nothing would get lost. When he turned back around, Toothless was right in his face, looking defiant.

_"__Ic ne béo,__" _Toothless hissed.

_"Géa, ðu bist,"_ Hiccup hissed back, and maybe it was because he was mad at himself for teaching Hiccup Dragonese in the first place, Toothless couldn't say anything.

_"Cume,"_ Hiccup insisted, somewhat more gentle, and grabbed Toothless' hand and all but dragged him from the smithy. Halfway through the village, people began to stare because Hiccup was hauling a tall dark, glaring boy behind him by the hand like he was an infant.

"You know, if you keep putting up a fight, it'll be even worse when we get there." Toothless didn't say anything, and Hiccup didn't look back. "Fine. I'll just go in there and tell them that you haven't missed them one bit, that you've forgotten about them entirely and-"

"No, don't," Toothless yanked his hand away, and didn't sound so angry as he did resigned, now, and not happy about it. He sighed and scowled. "I do not wish to see them," He said, "but it is not because I did not miss them." He looked down at the ground as they continued across the bridge to the academy. Hiccup knew Toothless was solitary most of the time, but he also knew that he had just as much of a family among the dragons of Berk as Hiccup had among the vikings. He was different, for sure, but he was bound to miss them anyway.

When they got to the academy, Fishlegs was buzzing in the air with Meatlug, and Snotlout rode Hookfang in teasing circles around them. Astrid was still eating, and hanging her legs down into the area where Stormfly was preening.

"Hey, Hiccup!" Fishlegs waved and smiled, and immediately went back to batting away Snotlout, who laughed. Dragons and humans looked up together, and Ruffnut was the one to notice first,

"Woah, he brought his dragon-person with him!" Tuffnut shoved his sister aside to see.

"He has a name, you know," Astrid rolled her eyes, and brushed off her hands so she could haul herself up. She smiled at the two new arrivals and came closer, even as Toothless eyed the dragons around him and glared some more. They either didn't notice or didn't care.

_"Tóðléas!" _Stormfly trilled, and shook herself before stepping over. A gaggle of terrors heard her and followed.

_"Tóðléas! Tóðléas! Tóðléas!"_ they chorused.

Hiccup was trying to listen to what Astrid was saying, but his new Dragonese skills were distracting him with all the different voices and accents and pitches as poor Toothless was bombarded by his hodgepodge family. It didn't take too long for Astrid to catch on, and she was torn between smiling and cringing as terrors leaped at Toothless' shoulders and arms.

"Ah!" He exclaimed, unused to the feel of small dragon claws pricking at his skin uncomfortably. He withstood the barrage for a moment, before,_ "__Áblinna__þ__!"_ he snapped, and the dragons scattered. They continued to chatter and stamper around him, but at least they weren't on him. Stormfly turned her head to look at him, and trilled something Hiccup could partially understand.

_"__Swá it is true," _she peered down at him, _"Tóðléas __gehíwede æ vikingr."_

"_Géa, it is true," _Toothless replied, somewhere between glum and pride. Stormfly's spikes all ruffled in a wave of excitement. She called to the other dragons, and they gathered around. Hookfang and Meatlug both ignored whatever their riders wanted and turned to land and crowd around Toothless. Soon it was all dragon chatter and Toothless this and Toothless that, and all the humans were pushed to the back. Fishlegs was happy to watch them and speculate about language, while Snotlout tried to figure out what the big deal was. Hiccup's head was in a whirl, because he was stupidly trying to understand everything at once, and nothing made sense.

He could hear _Tóðléas,_ and _vikingr_, and "_Wilnaþ ðu,"_ which took him a little bit longer to translate – _we missed you_. He smiled when he understood. Eventually Toothless wrestled his way into the center of the arena and got them all to settle down. The humans watched from around the top while the night fury spoke to the dragons' attention.

Hiccup was distracted from interpreting for a while, because he was seeing a side to Toothless that he'd almost forgotten about. Of course he knew that Toothless was fun, and friendly, and insatiably curious (if not stubborn and proud) but now he was reminded that, in the dragon world, Toothless was a figure of command. Perhaps he was no longer the prince he'd been born as, but even in a slapdash flock like the one found on Berk, he was a voice to heed among dragons, and the authority carried through to Hiccup's ears, even in an alien language he was only beginning to understand. Hiccup realized suddenly that, physically, Toothless' human form was much closer to being a man than a boy. It made him wonder how close or far apart he and his dragon friend actually were, in relative ages.

"_Ic álære __ðæt ágenspræce_ _tó _Hiccup," Toothless said. Hearing his name in Norse suddenly made Hiccup flinch, and every single dragon in the area turned to look at him for a beat. Then, they exploded in chattering, and noises, and words that he sort of understood, and some of them started coming near him. If Hiccup could've seen the surprised face he'd made, he might've understood why Toothless was sniggering at him.

"_Cume_," Toothless waved him over, down into the arena.

"What'd he say?" Astrid asked as he passed. Hiccup turned a befuddled expression on her.

"I have no idea," He whispered. Astrid looked jealous that he was being invited into this strange, momentous occasion, but she and the rest of the vikings watched keenly (even though they didn't understand a word) while Hiccup shuffled down into the ring and was swarmed by dragons on all sides.

"_Ácwiðe!" _They said to him, "_Ácwiðe!" _When Hookfang came up behind him and nudged gently and said it again, he finally realized what they were telling him to do.

"_Speak!" _the monster encouraged. Hiccup was blushing, because it was bad enough whenever he messed up his pronunciation and embarrassed himself in front of Toothless – what if he messed up in front of _all of them_?

"Umm…" He looked around at the dragons around him, and paused for a moment when he saw Toothless' encouraging smile. The dragons around him quieted in anticipation. Eventually, he mustered up the courage to say, "…_Wesaþ hāl,"_

The dragons cheered, and Toothless beamed at him, so he must've gotten the greeting right. Hiccup found himself smiling, too, confused as he was. The terrors climbed on him, and a gronkle bumped him from behind, and after he listened closely to the dragon voices (which were, as he predicted, a bit harder to understand than Toothless' human voice) he began making out the repeated phrase,

"_Æðelin speaks! Æðelin speaks!" _

_"Æðelin __biþ __Dracareord! Dracareord!"_

"_Æðelin!"_ they cheered, _"Æðelin!"_

Hiccup turned a confused look to Toothless. "I don't understand," he said, hoping the other dragons wouldn't hear and be offended that their new language initiate didn't understand them, "why are they so happy that _you're_ talking with them?" Because Æðelin was Toothless' dragon name, Hiccup knew.

It was Toothless' turn to look sheepish. He smiled despite himself. "Before you came along, in our slavery to the queen, we never used our given names. They have never known me by any other name but _Tóðléas,_" Toothless explained. "_Æðelin_ is you, _Gicpa_."

Hiccup gave him his best befuddled look. "Me?" He asked incredulously. Toothless grinned at him, eyes twinkling with something that might've been pride.

"Did I never tell you? To the dragons of Berk, you have always been _Prince_."

* * *

**A/N:** I promise I will not always make these things so foreign language heavy. I'm hoping to slowly whittle away at the alien words as Hiccup learns more Dragonese, until they're all displayed in English, but in italics. In the interim, here are the (really rough) translations for this chapter:

_Gebrædan_: to cook

_Gedyngan: _(I know you're all wondering) to defecate

_Ic ne béo: __I will not. (Or actually, 'I am not' because Old English does not have a future tense)_

_Géa, ðu bist: __Yes, you will. (similar rule to above.)_

_Cume: __Come_

_Swá: __So_

_Gehíwede æt vikingr: _Has transformed (in)to a Viking (human)

_Ic álære __ðæt ágenspræce_ _tó: _I am teaching the (our) language to (Hiccup)

_Wesaþ hāl: _Hello (to you all)

_Æðelin __biþ __Dracareord: _Prince is Dragontongue

I had _**WAY**_ too much fun with the Old English translations, even though I know I butchered all of it. Translating dead languages feels kinda like making mud pies as a kid – you know it doesn't do anything for you or anyone else but make things messy, but _dang_ is it fun.


	8. Kindelline

A/N: I should warn you, this chapter is heavy on my personal dragon culture headcanon, and the dragon culture and eventually magic will grow heavier from here on out. Just to let you know! Hope it doesn't put anyone off.

* * *

After the rest of the Berkian dragons got involved, learning Dragonese became ten times easier and ten times more stressful for Hiccup. Easier because now he had about a hundred tutors instead of just one, and more stressful because _all of them_ wanted to talk to him any chance they got.

It was the monstrous nightmares that were the most laid-back about the whole thing. Something about their prestige among the dragons required them to carry a high-nosed, hard-to-impress air. Their haughtiness usually grated on Hiccup, but it was actually calming to be around when the rest of the dragons were attempting to talk his ears off. The terrors were the worst, but perhaps the most entertaining. Hiccup was beginning to learn that Berk's smallest dragons were its most terrible gossips, who also loved to argue. Stormfly was the most precise about language, and Hiccup learned at least a dozen words per day from the nadder alone. But it was actually Meatlug, who was perhaps the most down-to-earth, simple, (but not in a bad way) and humble of all the dragons, who served as Hiccup's verbal anvil as he hammered out the difficult pronunciations. Grammar was Toothless' forte, but even the night fury tired of practicing after a few hours, so Hiccup would go and talk at Meatlug for a while. Even if she _looked_ like she was asleep, she would wake up to correct him if he said something wrong.

As Hiccup's language skills blossomed, Toothless began to spend more time with his dragon family. They were all as astonished as he was about his transformation, and just as baffled. The night after Hiccup and come to the arena and spoken, the night after Toothless had returned, the dragons had held a conference of sorts at the arena. All the humans were asleep in their beds, even Hiccup, and the dragons – and one dragon-human – chattered away in Dragonese without the need to slow down for any humans trying to understand.

"But what is it _like_ not having a tail?" Spitelout's terror asked.

"And not having wings!" "Or wings!" "I said that," "Shut up!" Barf and Belch said in turn.

"Toothless, are you _positive_ you didn't eat anything rancid or strange in the forest?" Hookfang put in.

"All of you, quiet down!" Toothless put out his hands. "If you want answers, let me speak. No, _Hócfæng_, I did not eat anything of the sort."

"But wings! Wings!" the terror insisted.

"We said that!" Barf and Belch.

Toothless looked annoyed. "If you must know, I often forget about wings. Not because they are missing, but because I do not feel that I need them. Not in this form." He did _not_ tell them, for he had not even told Hiccup, that he'd developed a twisting in his stomach that he sometimes suspected had to do with a growing fear of heights. "It is the same with tails. I have been too consumed with other human senses to fret about things like tails and wings."

"Other human senses?" Hookfang sounded surprised. "You talk as if they are something to behold." The dragons laughed, because they all knew human senses and coordination were the laughing stock of creation.

"But they _are_," Toothless said, and it shut them all up. Toothless, one of the most refined, most powerful dragons in the skies, was talking about human senses like a hatchling who'd just flown for the first time. "They truly are. Not like we appreciate senses. Yes, the hearing vision and sight and smell are terrible on the best of days – they cannot sense _cáfnes _at all,"

"That's horrible!" Cried Stormfly, "it's a wonder they survive at all."

"Hush," barked Meatlug, "he's not finished yet."

Toothless nodded at her gratefully, yesterday's grudge forgotten. "No, you see, they may not have all that, but they have other things that make up for it."

"How do you mean?"

"These," Toothless said, and lifted his hands, wriggling his fingers for them to see. "They are _magic_. I can… do things, hold things, move things, in ways that would be impossible for a dragon. That is why _Vikingr_ have such complicated nests, and outerskins, and the extra-claw things they call swords and daggers, and their line languages. They make them with these." He gestured. The dragons were listening carefully. "And their sense of touch is…" He smiled, unable to help himself. "it's like nothing I've ever sensed before. You all think that humans shy away from fire, and cry when they are struck, and shiver in the high winds, because they are dramatic, no? Because they are weak."

Hookfang snorted. "Not that it isn't amusing, but yes, of course."

Toothless was shaking his head. "But they're not, you see. Would any of you say that I am weak? When I lost my tail, or when I was captured? Or fell from the fire of the Queen?"

"Of course not," Stormfly said. Toothless was not bragging, not by dragon standards. They watched him for an answer.

"And yet, if you had seen me these past weeks, you would say I was the weakest human of all. Stormfly, I yelled at you days ago for burning Hiccup's hand – I am sorry about that."

"It is forgiven. I did wonder why you were so angry, though. The Prince is a Fire Shaper and burns often, I did not think it was a big deal."

Toothless frowned. "That is because _Gicpa_ hides his pain perhaps better than I ever could. Fire does not just hurt, not like you would understand the word. It is a constant hurt, like being sliced open with a blade over and over again, a hurt that does not stop until it is completely healed. I burned myself accidentally, my first week in this form," he unrolled a sleeve and revealed a red patch of skin. "It has not yet healed. It still hurts," He said. Stupidly, one of the terrors decided to test the theory, and reached out to stomp right on the burn. Toothless yelled and cursed, involuntarily reaching out to backhand the culprit. The dragon skidded away with a yelp, unharmed, but the rest of the dragons were staring at Toothless with wide eyes. Toothless scowled and blushed at the same time, tucking his arm back to himself. "As I said," He glared, and the terror had enough grace to look apologetic.

"But how do they stand it?" Meatlug asked. "I see _Vikingr_ hurt all the time - and the Prince's leg!"

Toothless sighed. "I do not know. _Gicpa_ does still suffer because of what I did." He was looking down. They all knew that he referred to Hiccup's leg. "But there is another side to human feeling, something deep, down here," he pointed a finger to himself, right where the soft of his gut met the tip of his sternum, "that pulls on every sensation and reels it into something I cannot describe. It is a feeling like no other, that makes everything else, the bad hearing, and smell and vision, and the hurts and burns, makes it worth it. I wish I could describe it to you," and he sounded like he really did. He wished his family could know what he'd discovered. The dragons did not say anything in reply, because they almost wished he could, to.

"But you cannot stay a _Vikingr_ forever, Toothless," Meatlug said after a while. "What are we to do?"

A chorus of murmuring followed, without any real suggestions, because they were all just as confused as the other. Toothless sighed. "Gicpa and Astrid were hoping that conversing with you all might shed some light on the matter. But I fear we are all just as ignorant as the other on this."

"Us, perhaps…" Meatlug ventured, "but… you don't suppose _Ealdcwén _would know, do you?"

"Oh, no," Hookfang deflated, "not that old crone."

"Meatlug _has_ a point," Stormfly didn't sound happy about it, but glanced at Toothless for support. "Ealda is the oldest dragon a thousand leagues. If anyone would have a reason to know about… this," she nodded toward Toothless, "She would."

Toothless pursed his lips, and nodded. "It would be wise to talk to her, I think. _Gicpa_ brought me to speak with the Vikingr elderwoman, but she was unable to help."

"Ah, but the Vikingr elder was born and raised here, remember," Meatlug told them, "Ealda comes from the eastern mainlands. She may yet know more about the world than us or any Vikingr here at Berk."

* * *

Toothless didn't actually know if any of the Vikings _knew_ about Ealda. Even if they had, he couldn't imagine what they'd do with her. She did not fly anymore, but mostly slept. She lived in a quiet cave beneath the rocks of the island, and spent her days fishing the shallows and laughing at forest creatures. She was an ancient breed of nadder from the mainlaind, taller and thinner than Berkian nadders, and a mute grey color instead of the bright yellows, blues and greens like Stormfly. Her scales were scared, her leather hide sagging, and her eyes were clouded with cataracts. Her _ears_, however, were as sharp as ever.

"I feel the moon humming at me, and yet someone's decided to come and badger me from sleep. With food, I should hope. And… have they brought a _human_ along with them?" Curled in sleep as she'd been, Ealda craned her neck up and sniffed, curious.

"Good startime, _Ealdcwén_," Stormfly bobbed a head at her, even if she couldn't see well. "There are five of us here," she said,

"Six," Said Belch. "Shut up!" said Barf.

"Ahmm," Ealda chucked at the zippleback. "Five and six at once, we shall say. And who else is there?"

"Meatlug, Hookfang, and Toothless," Stormfly told her. A strange quiet followed, as Ealda lifted her head more and sniffed again. After thinking for a while, she said,

"I do not smell the smoke of a night fury among you, but only that sweet, light fur of _vikingr_."

"That _would_ be me, _Ealdcwén_," Toothless said, putting forth an effort not to sound annoyed.

"By the crosswinds!" Ealda actually stood up, her spines ruffling from head to toe. "_Toðléás!" _She exclaimed, "You are _Vikingr!_"

"…That is why we are here, Ealda," Stormfly told her. Toothless shuffled self-consciously beside his friend, blushing despite the fact that the mainland nadder couldn't see him through her blind eyes.

"But… for how _long_?" Ealda asked, reeling.

"This would be in my fourth week as a vikingr," Toothless told her. She breathed in and tried to compose herself. After a few beats to gather her thoughts, she asked,

"You do not know _why_, then?" He sighed.

"We do not know _how_."

"We were hoping, if you don't mind, that _you_ might know something, Ealda," Hookfang put in in his suave tone.

Ealda slowly sank back down to sit perched on her nest. Her back remained straight, blind eyes wide, as she settled. "Well," She said, "I might not remember many legends from my days among the _wéyr _across the seas, but this, _this_ I remember," she said confidently.

"You know, then?" Toothless couldn't deny his excitement, "you know what has happened to me, why I have become a _vikingr?_"

"Not in the slightest," Ealda said, confidence unwavering, "but I remember hearing about it in a legend, when I was a young hatchling."

Toothless stared at her, mouth agape, wanting very much for her to see his glare. Then, she added.

"More importantly, I remember who told me."

"Who?" "Who?" Barf and Belch asked at the same time, and for once didn't bicker over who'd said it first.

"Tell me, masters five and six at the same time," she turned a grin on them, "who is the fastest flier among your _wéyr?_"

"Why?" Stormfly interjected. The elder nadder looked to her, her blind eyes somehow glimmering with an inexplicable sight.

"You will need swift wings to alert the Kindelline of _this_ news."

* * *

Hiccup was nearly done with his breakfast when Toothless finally woke up. Well, 'awake' was a generous term to use. He'd actually fallen halfway down the stairs before miraculously landing on his feet again and shuffling the rest of the way down to the ground floor. He fell into a seat across from Hiccup, shirtless, waistband twisted sideways, hair looking like he'd been falling through air all night long. But most notably,

"Thor above, Toothless, what happened to your _eyes_?"

Toothless looked blearily up at him, and couldn't have said what exactly had happened to his eyes, although he _had_ noticed. They were squinty and blurred and achy. He wasn't entirely sure why.

"Did you sleep at _all_ last night, bud?" Hiccup looked worried. Toothless sniffed because his nose was running.

"…yes," he said through a harsh morning voice. It wasn't lying, not really. He'd slept for a least _part_ of an hour after he'd returned to the house. Hiccup saw through the bluff, and Toothless would've cursed in Dragonese, if only he hadn't taught Hiccup to understand all of the good ones.

"Oh, well _you_ sound sure," Hiccup said in the deadpan sarcasm that was his trademark. He leaned across the table and touched a forefinger to the dark semicircles beneath Toothless' eyes. Toothless wasn't entirely sure how this was supposed to help, so he watched the hand go to and from his face with quirked eyebrows. Hiccup still looked concerned.

"You should go back to sleep, bud." And Toothless was sure it was the only time he'd _ever _hear the words come from Hiccup's mouth. "You look horrible."

Toothless shoveled a few spoonfuls of oatmeal into his mouth before rising, shoulders slumped, to shuffle around to the stairs. He took the steps slowly - he would _not_ fall all the way back down again. Hiccup wasn't looking up at him when he said,

"Whatever it was that you were out doing last night, you can tell me about it when you wake up."

Toothless grunted, not really listening, and forgot everything else the moment his head hit his pillow.

* * *

When Toothless woke up again – _truly_ awake this time, it was past noon. He would've slept longer, if it hadn't been for the shouting coming from downstairs. No longer bleary-eyed but confused by the mind games his internal clock was playing with the position of the sun, Toothless got out of bed and went to the door. When he opened it, he actually jumped at the shouts echoing from below. Astrid and Hiccup were fighting, by the sounds of it. Astrid was a good deal louder than Hiccup was, but nothing new, there. Curiously, Toothless poked his head over the edge of the loft to look down at them.

"Astrid, if she's not _there_, there's not much I can do-"

"You speak _Dragonese_, stupid, can't you just… go and _ask _one of them?"

"You don't _own_ her, you know, she'll be back soon."

"I just want to know where she's gone to!"

"Astrid, relax, I'm sure Stormfly can take care of herself, you don't have to-"

"Worry? Hiccup, if _Toothless_ disappeared like this on you, you'd be worried sick, and you know it."

Above them, Toothless felt simultaneously insulted and touched, and he frowned at the sensation.

"Alright, fine, but really, can you just give her one day? It'll be fine, trust me. She might just be… taking a break. You know, from all the chatter."

"_Chatter_? That doesn't make any sense."

"Well, maybe not, but… really, just relax!"

"You tell me that one more time, Haddock, I'm going to put my fist through your-"

Toothless sniffed.

Hiccup looked up. "Toothless!" He said. He could only see Toothless' nose and eyes peeking over the ledge. "How long've you been there?" he asked. Astrid turned to look up at him. Toothless did not reply, but his shifty eyes said enough. Hiccup sighed. "Whatever. Come on down, bud. I don't suppose _you_ know where Stormfly is?" Hiccup asked. Astrid was giving Toothless a weird look because his trousers were still twisted sideways from sleeping and he wasn't doing anything to fix his hair, either, as he strolled into the kitchen for a glass of water. He took a leisurely swallow before answering, while Astrid and Hiccup stared at him.

"The whole island knows," He said between gulps. "She flies on a mission to the West Kindelline post – she left last night."

Hiccup and Astrid stared. "The- wait, _what_?" Hiccup asked. "_Where_ is she going?"

"Not 'where'," Toothless said, setting his cup down and finally readjusting his trousers, "to _whom_. The Kindelline – they are a series of outposts, a chain stretching from the westernmost islands to the far Eastland, across the mainland. It is an ancient line of communication between dragon colonies," he explained.

"And Stormfly had to go see them because…" Astrid crossed her arms.

"Because of me," Toothless said, at looked slightly sorry about it. "Because I am human. The dragons here do not know what to make of my condition. They send word across the Kindelline in the hopes of receiving answers from those that know better about these things."

"You think someone _does _know?" Hiccup asked. Toothless shrugged.

"We hope so. I cannot say how long it will take to receive a reply to our queries, however. Even for the swiftest of dragons, crossing the mainland is a massive journey." He started shuffling around the kitchen, looking for food. He'd become rather adept around human foodstuffs, and had developed a partiality to bread in particular. Hiccup had often wondered if he shouldn't just hire him out as an apprentice to the local baker.

"And why does _Stormfly_ have to be the one to take the news?" Astrid asked, trying not to sound upset for Toothless' sake, but not doing a very good job at it. Toothless spoke around a mouthful of sourdough to say,

"She's the fastest set of wings on Berk," he swallowed, and looked a touch bitter as he rolled his eyes. "Well, except for _me_, of course, but… nevermind that. When we decided to send someone off to the Kindelline last night, she was the natural choice. I am sorry if she did not get a chance to bid you goodbye – I admit our pushiness forbade her from doing much of anything before being off."

"How long will she be gone?"

Toothless looked thoughtful as his thumbs dissected a roll. "It is hard to say. The Kindelline move their posts according to the seasons. The local post is slightly farther away from Berk this time of year, but not as far away as it could be. Winds willing, if she pushes herself, she may be back tomorrow night, after dark."

Astrid bristled at the news, but hid her irritation well now that she understood the reason. "Right," she said. She drummed her fingers against her skirt for a moment before sighing. She turned to Hiccup and, with little warning, drew back a fist and slugged him across the shoulder.

"Ow!" He hissed and had to bite his tongue, because he now had_ two_ languages of tempting curses to choose from. "Astrid, for the love of Odin, when will you _stop doing that_?!"

"That was for being an insensitive prick," she snarled like she hadn't heard him. Then, predictably as ever, she grabbed him by his collar and pulled him close to kiss him soundly on the mouth. She let him go after a few seconds, and tucked her hair behind her ears and tried to pretend he was the only who was blushing. "That's for trying to help anyway." She said, voice much softer. After looking at Hiccup a moment more, she looked over at Toothless, who had watched the exchange with equal parts curiosity and bewilderment. "Thank you, Toothless." He smiled at her, and she left. Toothless looked over at Hiccup and had to try very hard not to laugh at the dazed look on his bright-red face. Eventually, Toothless lost the battle and laughed anyway. Hiccup's eyes darted to glare at his friend.

"What are _you_ looking at?" Hiccup snapped. Toothless shook his head, smiling.

"You humans have very strange mating rituals."

Hiccup began sputtering, and turned ten shades redder. Toothless laughed harder.


	9. Wodan Brothers

**A/N:** How about that trailer, huh? I think I might've watched it upwards of 30 times now, it's actually rather pathetic. But _my boyyysss_.

But alas, it's still a year off. In the meantime, updates!

Two heads-up about this chapter! **One: **ridiculous amounts of mush ahead! Toothless/Hiccup bromance, big time! **Two**: This chapter is actually much shorter than most of the previous chapters. I tried to stick in a bit more, but it just didn't feel right. So, here you go.

* * *

"Hiccup?" Toothless asked that night, through the dark of their room.

"Hmm?" Hiccup was only a few breaths away from sleep.

"How old are you?"

It made Hiccup open his eyes and think. "Why?"

Toothless didn't answer the question, and instead said, "you measure age in number of winters, yes?"

"Yes."

"How many winters have you seen?"

"A little over seventeen," Hiccup replied.

"Oh," Toothless said. Quiet. "And… how old do humans grow to be?" He asked, poorly masked apprehension in his voice. Hiccup propped himself up on an elbow.

"Oh, I don't know. Sixty? Seventy? Eighty, if you're lucky. Some people say Gothi is ninety or a hundred, but I don't know about that."

"Oh," Toothless said again, this time sounding somewhat relieved.

"What about dragons?" Hiccup asked, aware that their conversation was turning to thinly-veiled morbidity, but not really caring.

He could almost hear Toothless shrug. "It depends on the species. Terrors do not live as long as bigger dragons – mostly because they are so careless, I think. But most dragons are slightly longer lived. Maybe, eighty to one-hundred and ten. I've heard of ones growing older, but they are rare."

"Oh," it was Hiccup's turn to sound apprehensive. "And… how old are you?"

"Older than you," Toothless answered. "I found myself at Berk long before your seventeen winters. I cannot be entirely certain, because of how the Queen fogged my mind for years, but I believe, by your measurements, I am forty-one."

Hiccup couldn't help it when his eyebrows shot up. Toothless _looked _so much younger – but perhaps dragons aged slowly enough that it'd translated when he became a human. _Forty-one_, Hiccup frowned. It was far too morbid to think it out loud, but he did some quick arithmetic and let out a small sigh of relief.

"I feared what your answer would be," Toothless admitted from across the room.

"Me too," Hiccup told him.

"But, it seems we are in tandem with each other once again," Toothless said, rolling over in bed. The covers rustled until he'd found a comfortable spot. "I am glad for it, _Gicpa_," He said, "I'm not sure what I would do, knowing one day I'd be here without you." He paused "You must promise me you will live as long as your species allows."

Hiccup actually laughed, because how was he supposed to control something like that? "Only if you do, too," he said.

"Or else, we'll go together, in some ridiculously spectacular way that no one will believe," Toothless said.

"We could try the peaceful old-age route, you know"

"Yes, that is good as well," Toothless hummed. Silence reclaimed the room for a moment, and then Toothless added, "But right now we are both young, which means we must be as reckless and as adventuresome as possible."

"Won't that be asking for worlds of trouble?" Hiccup asked.

"Of course. But we'll be there to get each other out of it again. And when we're both old and dying, we can laugh at ourselves for all the stupid and incredible things we did."

It was so, so morbid, and yet, Hiccup was smiling. "Sounds like a plan," he agreed.

They both fell asleep, dreaming of adventures that lasted a shared lifetime.

* * *

True to what Toothless had said, Stormfly returned the following night, exhausted but successful. She'd gone straight to sleep, and Astrid put aside whatever bitterness she held against her dragon for not saying goodbye so that she could make her as comfortable as possible after a long flight.

Hiccup had stayed up with Astrid all night waiting for Stormfly, trying to keep himself as calming a presence as he could, because Astrid was still worried up the wall even after Toothless' reassurances. With Stormfly home and Astrid finally at ease, Hiccup shuffled sleepily back to his house sometime after midnight. When he got to his room, he frowned, because what little consciousness he had left registered that Toothless was not there. Then, he heard the trees rustle, and realized that his window was open. He stuck his head out and looked up.

"Toothless? What're you doing up there?" His voice was hoarse from fatigue. A faded silhouette in the moonlight, Toothless turned to look down at him. He shrugged.

"Enjoying the night," He said. Hiccup frowned, because it didn't sound quite like a straight answer. Sighing to himself, Hiccup straddled the windowsill. He looked up and down, and around himself.

"How did you even get _up_ there?" He asked incredulously. Toothless let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle. He scooted along the prow of the roof and reached out a hand.

"With two bare feet, not just one, so come on," and gestured for Hiccup to give him his hand. Hiccup took it and Toothless heaved up. Lately, Hiccup had been somewhat surprised to learn that, whereas he usually felt slighted when people pointed out his disability and all the things he couldn't do, when it was Toothless who said it, he didn't really mind.

Once perched atop the steep roof, the two scooted to the front of the house and let their legs dangle over the edge. Hiccup looked around, enjoying a view he'd never seen before. "I think you're the first person to climb up here," He said. Toothless hummed in response. The two sat in silence for a while, Toothless watching the stars, Hiccup watching the stars slightly less, because he kept looking at Toothless. Eventually, he asked, "So what are you _really_ doing up here?"

Toothless sighed, because he knew he'd been found out. But it was Hiccup, so breaking his silence wasn't that hard, even if he didn't want to. "Thinking. I wish I could have gone to the Kindleline with Stormfly."

"Why?" Hiccup frowned. "Is there something else you think she should've told them?"

"No," Toothless said, voice mild. "Only, my _Weyr_ nests very near to a kindleline post. If she – if _we_ could have travelled just a few days more, I might've been able to see my family."

Hiccup fell silent. He felt guilty and sympathetic and jealous all at once. He wished that he could take Toothless there straightaway, but he also wished that he could stand protectively in front of him and shout _mine_ when the other furies appeared. It was an awful, horribly selfish thing to want, and the fact made Hiccup feel so guilty he couldn't say anything.

"Last I was there, my uncle oversaw the Northeast Post, along the continental coast, just south of the northern mountains." Toothless smiled to himself. "He would always come back and tell us all sorts of tales from around the world. My father thought it filled our heads with nonsense, but he never did stop uncle from telling us stories."

"You had siblings, then?" Hiccup asked, curious but also inexplicably uncomfortable. He felt guiltier when he realized that he was uncomfortable because he'd thought all this time that _he _was Toothless' only family.

"Two younger brothers," Toothless said. His eyes looked far-off. "Mother always had such a horrible time, trying to control the lot of us," he said it quietly, without enthusiasm. He sounded sad.

Hiccup looked down at his hands. He bit at his lip and eventually said, "Maybe you could go back one day."

Toothless frowned. "_Gicpa_, I've not sent word to them for many years – they think me long dead, I'm sure."

"Well, all the more reason to go back," Hiccup said, warming to the idea. "They'd be happy to see you, I'm sure."

"Even if I thought it was a good idea," Toothless told him strongly, "It's not like I could just… up and leave,"

"Why not?" Hiccup seemed genuinely confused, and it stumped Toothless.

"Why _not_-" Toothless sputtered, "Hiccup, I couldn't just… _fly off without you," _

"Of course not – I'd go with you."

The way Hiccup had said it, no-nonsense, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, made all words freeze on Toothless' mouth. He opened and closed his jaw like a fish and eventually looked away.

"I mean," Hiccup took the dragon's silence as disagreement, "Unless you don't want me to, – I know I'm not a dragon, and I know it's kinda a family deal, so I don't _have_ to… you could still _go._ I still have the designs for that tail with the-"

"Don't you _dare_," Toothless actually smacked Hiccup on the arm. It didn't hurt, but Hiccup did jump. Toothless shook his head. "I hate that thing." He sighed. "No, I couldn't fly without you, _Gicpa_, not even if I wanted to."

"But the tail-"

"Has nothing to do with it. You do. I've flown with you for so long," Toothless' voice grew quiet, because it was a sensitive subject, "It wouldn't feel right without you. We've… we've mastered so much together, flown so far… I don't think I could do it on my own, without you on my back, reminding me."

The conversation felt slightly odd, of course, because Toothless was human at the moment, not dragon. But between a former-dragon and a rider who understood each other, it wasn't odd at all.

"You go anywhere you want, Toothless, anywhere at all," Hiccup said after a while, "and I'll fly all the way with you." They shared a meaningful look, but then Hiccup broke it when he said, "even if I'm not a dragon."

It made Toothless smile slyly. "I've actually always considered you more dragon than human," He admitted, turning his eyes back to the stars.

"Really?" Hiccup asked, feeling somewhat proud of himself.

"Yes. But whenever the illusion gets too strong, you go and do something idiotic like leap out of the saddle on purpose, age my nerves by a decade or so, and all at once I remember how human you are."

"Hrmph," Hiccup said, because he didn't know what else to say. Beside him, Toothless quirked a conceding eyebrow.

"Of course, I've always thought of myself as slightly more human than other dragons."

Hiccup looked over at Toothless' human face and human hands and human body. "_Slightly_?" He said, unable to keep from smiling.

"Oh, shut up," Toothless shoved the other boy through a smile, and Hiccup laughed. "you know what I mean,"

"So I'm a dragon and you're a human," Hiccup said. "Or both somewhere in-between."

"You wouldn't make a _completely_ rubbish dragon, you know." Toothless told him. "Assuming you had a pair of working wings to stop you from falling to your death."

Hiccup scratched a cheek thoughtfully. "Wings. Huh. …I'll get on that." He looked over at Toothless. "You don't make a completely rubbish human, either. Even if you still can't put your trousers on straight," He said as he grabbed and jerked on Toothless' belt in an attempt to straighten it. Toothless rolled his eyes.

"The human dragon and the dragon human," He shook his head. "We're a pair of _wodan_, do you know that?"

"A pair of what?" Hiccup frowned confusedly at the word.

"Madmen, insane people, touched in the head," Toothless translated. "You and I are right weirdos."

Hiccup laughed, but didn't answer. Instead, he began looking at his leg. "Maybe we could swap," he said, lifting his prosthetic. "You get my leg and I'll get your fin."

"What, and shall I stop with my tail whilst you flap with your leg?"

"Yes, and see who's the better flier then, why don't we?" Hiccup was smiling with mirth.

"You'll fall on your arse and force me to come and rescue you, but I'll end up stumbling over my tail-leg and whacking you in the face," Toothless said, fighting the rising feeling of laughter in his throat.

"And the whole village will laugh at us, because they won't realize that I'm the dragon and you're the human,"

"Perhaps we'll have to do something to convince them?" Toothless suggested.

"I can stuff my face with raw fish," Hiccup jibed.

"And I'll make myself a horned hat and wear a giant fur vest."

"With room for wings?" Hiccup asked. The mental image made Toothness snort

"And a fake leg on my tail," he said.

The two finally broke character together and dissolved into the laughter that they'd been holding back, happy noises echoing into the night. Eventually Hiccup realized the mistake.

"We should be quieter," He hissed, trying to suppress his giggling, hoping they hadn't awoken Stoick or any of their neighbors. Toothless had his laughing under control, but was still smiling,

"Is that why the villagers call you 'Dragon-Boy?' because you are actually part dragon and you never told me?" Toothless jested.

"And you've actually been human this whole time, and somehow managed to fly."

"Maybe."

They took a quiet moment to calm their laughter and faces, aching from smiling.

"Well, in any case," Hiccup said at length, we'll both fly back to your _weyr_ someday. I promise." And he meant it.

Toothless nodded. "Only, I'll be the one with wings, so perhaps you ought to give me my fin back."

"You'll need my leg too, of course."

"Yes, but only if you're attached to it. Neither fin nor foot do much for me any other way."

"They could, you know."

"I don't want them to," Toothless said honestly. Hiccup smiled, and looked down to hide just how touched he was at the gesture.

"Okay," He told his friend quietly. "We'll fly together. Wherever we want to go."

The conversation died after that, replaced by calm, companionable silence. Hiccup suddenly remembered how exhausted he was, and begun nodding off to the sound of the soft breeze, the lapping waves, and the chirping of crickets. Toothless breathed in the cool night air appreciatively, his nocturnal nature not quite gone from him, even as a human.

Toothless didn't realize that Hiccup had leant his face up against his shoulder, and didn't hear it when the Viking begun to snore softly. But when Toothless went to point out a constellation and turned to see Hiccup drooling on his sleeve, he realized the other boy was asleep. He laughed softly and shook his head, and immediately went about getting Hiccup off the roof.

"I would've thought you would seem heavier, now that I am human, and smaller," Toothless told the unconscious body as he clambered in through the window, carrying Hiccup, "but it seems you are always as thin and light as a willow branch." He carried Hiccup over to his bed.

"_Tóðléas_," Hiccup slurred, and Toothless laughed.

"I will never understand how you humans manage to speak in your sleep," he said, but he was smiling, because Hiccup was speaking to_ him_, and in the Dragonese that he'd taught him. After setting Hiccup down on the mattress, Toothless took off his prosthetic and begun unwrapping his stump, as he'd seen Hiccup do for himself every night.

"_Tóðléas_," Hiccup said again through heavy sleep.

"Yes, that's me," Toothless said, amused. "I don't suppose you remember anything else I taught you, do you?"

"_B__roþor,_" Hiccup said, and Toothless froze. He turned clear, wide eyes on Hiccup's face, but the boy was clearly still asleep.

Toothless didn't remember ever teaching Hiccup that word. It was a word Toothless himself hadn't heard in many, many years.

"_B__roþor," _He repeated to himself, as if to confirm what Hiccup had said. Toothless realized then that one of the other dragons must've taught Hiccup that word, that the viking must've asked. Toothless wondered why Hiccup would need to know the word. Unless, the fury realized, he'd intended to use it for Toothless.

There were many emotions that Toothless had determined were exclusively human in experience. But this feeling, he remembered from his days as a dragon: the feeling of being deeply touched. Smiling slowly, Toothless finished unwrapping Hiccup's leg, and pulled the covers up over him.

"Of course, _Gicpa_," he said softly, mixing Norse and Dragonese in a way that felt right between them. "Who else would you drag with you around the world?" He smiled. "Even if the _vikingr_ die out and all the dragons fade from the earth, _Gicpa_, I will still be – I will _always_ be your brother."

"_B__roþor_," Hiccup slurred again, this time quieter, because he was falling further asleep.

"_Ic beo hér,_" Toothless said. He closed the window and slipped into his cot. He'd meant what he'd said. Even if Hiccup couldn't hear him through his sleep, Toothless had meant it for always.

_I'm here_.


	10. Bickering

**A/N: **A few things:

Firstly, the headcannon about dragons and sea serpents comes courtesy of **The Antic Repartee**, or, as I know her from Tumblr, **Avannak**. Thanks for the lovely headcannon, dear!

Secondly: This story started as a complete crack fic, but the plot has leaped from my hands and ran away into a long, drawn out who-knows-what-to-call-it. But now, I've finally figured out how it's going to end. I can't give it away, obviously, but I'm just going to stick in a disclaimer here that now you might want to gear up for some angst when this story starts to wrap up.

Just letting you know in case you need to jump ship. But that's chapters away! First we need some more bonding and some answers!

* * *

Hiccup and Toothless had been invited to the Hofferson's for dinner. Eating with Astrid's family actually wasn't out of the ordinary for Hiccup. When the trend first started, Stoick would come as well, but these days it'd devolved into a more casual setting, where Hiccup would come whenever Lady Hofferson invited him, and eat whatever food she offered him. Years ago, when it'd begun, Hiccup hadn't understood _why_ they would want him over for dinner, because it just wasn't something you did outside of the mead hall. But as he grew older, as he began to look slightly beyond the next few months, years, in his relationship with Astrid, he suddenly realized why her parents were keen on seeing more of him. It made him blush and stutter and fidget whenever he thought about it, so he made himself think it was just a nice friendly visit that had nothing to do with the future.

But he didn't even have to try to tell himself that this time, because Toothless was there, and his presence kept Hiccup's mind too occupied to stray toward awkward thoughts.

He'd spent half an hour correcting Toothless' wardrobe before they left. Hiccup found he didn't mind anymore when he had to redress Toothless – if anything, he didn't mind because he _couldn't_ mind, because Toothless was so hopeless with clothes. Earlier in the day, Hiccup had even gotten Toothless to _bathe_, which he'd desperately needed.

It'd been awkward because Hiccup had to help, but hilarious as well, because Toothless looked like he wanted stay in the tub forever, and wouldn't stop going on about how absolutely wonderful water felt through human skin. He'd splashed around in the tub like a toddler long after he was clean, but then his skin started wrinkling up, he panicked, and flew out of the bath before Hiccup could find a towel. After he got the dragon somewhat dry and decent enough to shove out of the bathroom, Hiccup (already soaked in water and suds from Toothless's flight) decided he might as well bathe, too.

When he reemerged, Toothless was lying shirtless on the floor of their bedroom, his hair in a fuzzy, puffy ball around his head. He was running his fingers through it, marveling.

"It's so _soft_," he told Hiccup as the other boy got dressed, "I used to think you humans were strange for keeping all this unnecessary fur," he said, stroking his own head. Hiccup didn't bother to correct the 'fur' comment. "But now I understand completely." He tried to nuzzle his own locks, which made Hiccup giggle quietly.

"Alright, Lord Softie, come sit up here before you get it tangled." Hiccup made him sit on the edge of the bed while he combed out his hair. Toothless began to nod off in the sensation of it, and looked sleepy and dazed by the time Hiccup was done.

"Ohhh," he whined when Hiccup stepped away, and looked down at the comb somewhat longingly.

"Don't touch it," Hiccup threatened, and threw Toothless' tunic and belt at him. "We're supposed to be there soon."

He had to reminded Toothless which way 'round the tunic went, and had to straighten his trousers, and adjust his belt, and they'd actually left and had to return shortly when Hiccup realized Toothless hadn't put on any boots. But eventually, they arrived at the Hofferson household, clean, hungry, and smiling at their hosts.

"Toothless!" Astrid welcomed from behind her mother at the door, "I'd wondered if you'd come." He beamed at her and waved as they stepped through the door.

Astrid's mother was a strong, beautiful Viking woman, much larger and bulkier than her daughter, but dignified and imposing. She was also a wonderful cook. She finished up dinner while Hiccup, Astrid, and Toothless stood talking. Astrid's father watched them quietly. He was a strong man, but slighter in build, half because of genetics, half because he hadn't fought in years. He'd lost his dominant right arm in a raid some years ago, and had since become accustomed to a more laid-back lifestyle. He wasn't an intellectual, but he'd learned to appreciate brains more, now that his own brawn was hampered. He held a special fondness for Hiccup, and not only because he saw how his daughter loved him.

"So," Mr. Hofferson asked, "Toothless, I have to ask how being human is suiting you."

"Sven!" Mrs. Hofferson burst, but her husband waved her off.

"Oh, it's fine, Ingrid, I'm sure the boy –er, dragon, that is, has been asked enough."

"It is… very different." Toothless told him. "But not bad, really."

"And have you found a way to change back?" Sven was being curious, not condescending.

Toothless and Hiccup shared a look. Astrid looked serious. "No," Hiccup said for them, "But we're working on it."

A few minutes later, dinner was served. Hiccup ate politely around Astrid's parents and joked with her about dragons, and training, and his inventions. Sven always seemed curious about Hiccup's inventions, so he explained his projects with enthusiasm. It was after Astrid begun to tell her parents about her day at the ring when Hiccup realized that Toothless hadn't touched his dinner.

"Toothless, you okay?" He whispered so as not to interrupt Astrid.

Toothless was frowning, and looking down his nose at the stew sat in front of him. "_I don't like it_," He confessed in Dragonese, so their hosts wouldn't hear.

"Why not?"

Toothless looked at Hiccup sidelong. "_Sy æl," _he muttered.

"What?"

"I said, it's _eel_."

Hiccup looked down at his own stew. He _had_ actually noticed, and no, it wasn't his favorite, but spices did wonders to mask the rubbery taste of eel. He sighed and glared over at Toothless. He switched his whispering to Dragonese so they wouldn't offend Mrs. Hofferson's cooking out loud.

"_Tóðléas, it's in a stew. It won't kill you. I hate eel too, and it tastes fine - good, even."_

"_No. You do not understand."_

"_Toothless, please, just eat the stupid stew."_

"_I will not," _He said stubbornly,_ "I do not care if this human body will like it or not. I am a dragon, and I will not."_

Hiccup actually rolled his eyes. _"You are ridiculous," _he spat.

"_Spawn of the sea serpents."_

"_What?" _

"_Eels come from sea serpents. Sea serpents are scum, devils from the oceans, who enjoy tormenting my kind and generally being disgusting, creepy, nasty imbeciles." _He definitely sounded like someone with a grudge.

"_Well then," _Hiccup said pleasantly, gesturing to the stew, _"Have your revenge._"

Toothless grumbled and used such a colorful Dragonese curse that it made Hiccup's eyebrows shoot up. "_Tóðléas!"_ He hissed, but Toothless only glowered. The Viking shoved a spoon towards the fury. _"Eat it," _he said.

"_No." _Toothless cross his arms. _"It smells horrible. Like eel slime and sea silt."_

"_I know you can't smell that, because I can't, and you yourself said that the human sense of smell isn't-"_

"_Well mine is, so stop trying to convince me otherwise."_

"_Toothless, so help me, stop being so rude and just eat the damn-"_

Astrid cleared her throat, loudly.

Hiccup and Toothless turned to see the Hofferson family staring at them. It looked as though they'd been watching them bicker in Dragonese for a while. Hiccup lowered the spoon and blushed. Toothless still glowered, arms crossed, but had the grace to look guilty.

"Something wrong, boys?" Sven asked, a hint of humor in his voice.

"Um," Hiccup drummed his fingers on the edge of the table, and glanced at the stew. An awkward moment passed before he said, "The stew, Mrs. Hofferson," Hiccup glanced at Toothless and then back up at the Hoffersons. "…it's eel, isn't it?"

The Hoffersons stared silently for a moment, but then Astrid snorted, and bust out laughing. Mrs. Hofferson put a hand to her mouth, realizing the mistake. Sven grinned.

"Oh, I am… I am so sorry," Ingrid looked embarrassed and amused. "I completely, that is, I forgot, Toothless, I'm sorry," Ingrid was one of the villagers who'd been very wary around Toothless, but in the moment, she could only laugh. "A-Astrid, would you mind…?"

"Don't worry, Toothless," Astrid said, rising, "I'll find you something." She rose and jogged to the kitchen.

"That's an interesting little code you have there," Sven said, sipping at his mead,

"What?" Hiccup asked.

"You two were rattlin' off in some strange gibbrish, just now," Sven clarified, and Hiccup blushed redder, because once they'd switched to Dragonese, he'd actually forgotten.

"O-oh. Yeah. Um, it's, uh, Dragonese. The language of the dragons." Hiccup glanced at Toothless. "He's teaching me."

Ingrid looked wary, but Sven's eyebrows lifted in interest. "Really? You can understand them, then, dragons?"

"Um, yeah, well, sorta." Hiccup was wringing his hands. "I mean, _dragon_ dragons are harder to understand, and… well, I'm still learning."

"He is more fluent that he lets on," Toothless cut in, his voice ringing with quiet pride, "we're all very impressed with him."

Hiccup looked surprised, because Toothless had never told _him_ that. He glanced at his friend, who smiled.

"Alright," Astrid reappeared with a tray of smoked meats, breads, and cheeses, "It's nothing special, but it's not eel." She set a new plate in front of Toothless, who tucked in gratefully. Contrary to what Hiccup thought, Toothless was beginning to understand human manners and etiquette, so halfway through eating his improvised dinner, he made it up to Mrs. Hofferson by asking nicely, "Mrs. Hofferson?"

"Yes?"

"Did you bake this bread?"

"Yes I did, this morning," She told him.

"It's incredibly good," He told her sincerely. She thanked him, and he paused and looked at Hiccup. "Much better than anything Hiccup makes, anyway." His eyes twinkled with a joke, and Astrid cackled at Hiccup's expense.

"Thanks, bud," Hiccup put in sarcastically.

Toothless smiled, one cheek full of bread.

After dinner, Astrid walked with the boys back to the Haddock house. As they did every time this happened, Astrid and Hiccup both pretended not to know that the Hofferson parents were spying on them from a crack in the door.

"_What do they want to see?"_ _Hiccup had asked her the first time she told him they were watching._

"_Well," Astrid took his hand, "never mention it in public unless you want to be killed painfully, but my mother is a complete sop on the inside," she'd told him._

"…_So?"_

"_So she spies on us to see if we'll do something like this," _

"_If we'll do something like wh-" but Hiccup had been cut off because she'd kissed him. It was brief enough for him to not die of embarrassment, but intimate enough that he would be beat red for the rest of the night._

"_Astrid," He'd whispered, slightly panicked, "your parents are watching," he hissed uncomfortably. She'd smirked at him._

"Exactly," she'd wrapped her fingers around his. They walked a few more paces before he sighed.

"_Well, in that case," He wrapped his arm around her waist. Hiccup didn't have the ears for it, but Astrid would recognize her mother's voice anywhere, even squeaking girlishly as it was._

"_I told you, Sven! I told you'd they'd-"_

"_Shh! Ingrid, for Thor's sake, get away from the door before they hear you."_

_Too late._

But now, if her parents _were_ watching, they were watching Toothless, too, so Astrid didn't feel compelled to give them a show. Still, she did intertwine her fingers with Hiccup's and let their hands swing between them as they walked. Toothless saw the gesture and squinted at both of them, at Hiccup's goofy smile and that _one_ _look_ that Astrid used only around Hiccup. Eventually, the dragon rolled his eyes and shook his head softly. They didn't make much conversation on the way back, but somewhere along the way, Toothless had grown somewhat frustrated with the two lovebirds next to him.

"_I wish you two would just mate already," _He grumbled aloud in Dragonese. Hiccup whirled on him, mortified.

"_Toothless!"_

"What?" Toothless exclaimed in Norse. Astrid looked confused.

"What? What'd he say?" She asked.

"Nothing," Hiccup blurted, making it sound like anything _but_ 'nothing'. He glared at Toothless. _"I can't believe you,_" he spat in Dragonese.

Toothless smiled, but decided to stay quiet. When they reached the door of the house, Hiccup and Astrid stopped, and Toothless realized they were probably going to have a moment. He didn't try to hide his smirk.

"Goodnight, Astrid," He smiled at her, and turned a vaguely suggestive look at Hiccup. "I'll leave you alone with _úre æfenhlytta,_" Dragonese floating suavely from his mouth. Hiccup fumed, but the anger was ruined by the horrible blush visible in his ears.

"_Toohless!"_

The dragon cackled and snuck into the house.

Astrid turned to him. "What did he call me?" She asked. Hiccup only shook his head. But he was blushing, and she wasn't stupid – she could guess. She had to smile, knowing that she could make him blush like that. "Well whatever it was, you don't have to be embarrassed, you know."

Hiccup sent her an _I extremely doubt that_ look, and she laughed.

"How do you _do_ that, anyway? Speak Dragonese?"

The change in topic made him frown for a beat. "I… I'm not sure what you mean – Toothless is teaching me, and the other dragons."

"I mean, how do you _say_ Dragonese words?" When she saw that he didn't understand, she sighed and explained, "I've listened to you and Toothless go back and forth. I can sometimes understand a word or two here and there, but…" She shrugged. "I can never say the words myself. I've tried, but… I can't pronounce them right, much less understand them when a real _dragon_ says them." Hiccup hadn't known any of this, so he wasn't sure how to respond. Astrid looked at him, proud but also jealous, "you have a real gift, Hiccup. It's not just something you're learning. I don't know… it's like…" she shrugged. "Something else." She regarded him a moment more, and shook her head with a chuckle. "Not that I should be surprised, dragon boy."

"Well," Hiccup shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. "I'm just trying to learn before… well, before he turns back," He told her. "I don't want to forget, after all this." She nodded at him.

"You won't. And maybe one day you can teach me. Even if it takes a long time."

He smiled at her, the dopey smile that he kept for her only. "I'd like that," he said.

"Okay," she smiled back, uncharacteristically shy in the moment. She leaned over and kissed him, longer and closer now that her parents weren't watching. He closed his eyes and wondered, as he often did, if he would ever actually get used to this.

When he made it to his room, he was still smiling, and thoroughly, happily dazed. Toothless made a monumental effort, and managed to not say anything.

Toothless could feel his consciousness swimming away from him, right on the cusp of dreams (and humans had shockingly vivid dreams, he'd learned) when Hiccup unexpectedly startled him awake again.

"So, do sea serpents really exist?" the Viking asked.

Toothless frowned, annoyed to be woken up and even more annoyed that he'd been woken up so that Hiccup could ask him about _sea serpents_. "Yes," he said, and prayed against reason that Hiccup would leave it at that.

"…So what do they look like?"

"Ugh," Toothless tossed himself over in bed, trying to get comfortable despite the massive grimace on his face. "I thought you'd drifted off to thoughts of you _æfenhlytta _by now," he grumbled, "how in skies did you get around to thinking about _sea serpents_?"

"Well, I was thinking about Astrid," Hiccup confessed, "so I was thinking about this evening with her, and then back to dinner, and then how you didn't _eat_ the dinner, and why, and – I was just curious, is all, I've never heard of sea serpents before you mentioned it tonight… wanted to know more about them, I suppose…"

In the dark, Toothless rolled his eyes. Hiccup was rambling, as he tended to when he was very sleepy and didn't want to admit it. Toothless usually didn't begrudge staying up talking with Hiccup. But not about _this_. "Yes, they exist. They live in the sea, they're huge, disgusting, foul-smelling, ridiculous creatures with no sense of decency and no love for dragons." He huffed. "Now go back to sleep."

"…When you say _big_, how big do you mean?"

"I don't know, _Gicpa_, I've only ever seen one once."

"And you hate them _that_ much?"

"Of course, all dragons do, our species have warred for centuries."

"But… If you've been warring for centuries, how come you've only ever seen _one_? Not much of a war, is it?"

"Long-standing rivalry, then."

"Over _what_?"

"…hating each other."

"Hating each other over _what?"_

"Because… oh, just go to sleep, _Gicpa_."

A long silence followed, and for a wonderful moment, Toothless thought the human had fallen asleep, then,

"…You think there're any sea serpents around Berk, Toothless?"

"If there are, I wouldn't care to know," Toothless growled.

"But how would you know? I mean, if there are any."

"Well, they like underwater caves, from what I understand, so probably somewhere deep, beneath rocky cliffs or the like." He didn't know why he was telling Hiccup all of this.

"Oh. Okay." Hiccup's sudden, cheery dismissal made Toothless frown to himself. It wasn't like Hiccup to stop asking questions, especially once he was on a roll. He never stopped asking questions until he found the answer he wanted, or at least one that could set him on the right track.

_Oh_.

Toothless sat up straight in bed. "_Gicpa_, I hope you are not thinking what I think you are thinking, and if you are, I need to tell you right now, that I will _not_ be taking you out hunting for sea serpents any time _ever_ in the future."

"Oh, come on, Toothless!" Hiccup threw his arms out dramatically. "We don't have to go _near_ one, I just want to see one!"

"Seeing one _is _going near to one."

"Just close enough to sketch it, get some specs, you know, for Fishlegs and the manual."

"That is _much _too close and – I'm sorry, you don't mean the _dragon manual_? Sea serpents are in no way dragons! You can't put them in there, too!"

"What about scauldrons or thunderdrums?" Hiccup asked.

"They are completely different! Just because they happen to live in the ocean doesn't mean they have anything in common with-"

"Do they understand Dragonese?" Hiccup cut in.

"What?"

"Sea serpents. Do they understand Dragonese?" He repeated. Toothless sputtered indignantly.

"Do they- I don't know! I wouldn't expect so, but I wouldn't know, because - and I believe I've already said this – I've only seen one once and I wasn't exactly chatting it up, repulsed as I was."

"I wonder if they find _you_ just as repulsive," Hiccup wondered aloud. Toothless felt a miniscule rush of guilt that manifested as annoyance.

"I am _not_ taking you serpent fishing."

And that settled it, for a few quiet seconds.

"So much for going wherever we want to go and doing stupid and reckless things," Hiccup grumbled. Toothless only rolled his eyes.

"_Gicpa_, I will go with you to the world's end and back, across every ocean in the world, if you like," Toothless said honestly, "But if we ever happen upon a sea serpent, I will _not_ be stopping so you can make charcoal pictures of it. I will find a way to turn my tail in the other direction, and I will fly away as quick as the winds allow." He fidgeted into his blankets and closed his eyes, determined to make this conversation end soon.

"Oh, you big baby. One day, we'll find a sea serpent, and I'll make you say hello." Toothless could hear Hiccup smiling.

"You will _not_," Toothless growled, not smiling, but not truly mad.

"Mmmhmm," Hiccup offered sarcastically. Their bickering died out, and they both floated off toward sleep in their beds. "I'll find one eventually," Hiccup mumbled.

"And I'll be there to yell at you for it," Toothless told him.

"And I don't think I'll listen."

"You never do, Saddle Jumper."

Hiccup laughed sleepily. "With wings," he said.

"What?" Toothless asked, confused and, for some reason, alarmed.

But Hiccup had fallen asleep.

* * *

Hiccup awoke at an unholy hour because Toothless was shaking his shoulder. It wasn't even light outside, Hiccup wanted to protest, but Toothless looked urgent.

"Wake up," he hissed, still shaking.

"What, what?" Hiccup batted his hands away, "I'm up, what's wrong?"

"The Kindleline," Toothless told him, eyes bright with anticipation and nervousness, "they've answered our call."

The news jolted Hiccup fully awake. Before he could ask any questions, Toothless told him, "Stormfly's just come by to tell me, there's a messenger waiting behind the arena."

Hiccup didn't say anything. He threw off his covers, fumbled into his prosthetic, and jumped out of bed.

* * *

**A/N:**

**_úre -_**_ your__  
_

**_æfenhlytta_**_ -__ mate; consort_


	11. Behwearft

**A/N:** I'm not really happy with how this chapter ended up, but I'm not sure how I might edit it/write it better. And since this is just fanfic and I'm doing it for fun, I decided I didn't want to think about it too hard. This is actually the longest chapter of this story so far, I think.

I need to warn you, this chapter is heavy on the magic/fate/destiny side of things – but really, Toothless _turned into a freaking human_ how else am I supposed to deal with something like that? But I figure, if you guys can like a movie like _Brave_, you can sit through this chapter.

Enjoy!

* * *

It was still dark outside when Hiccup shut the door softly behind them, pre-dawn light just beginning to filter across the sky. It was chilly out, the air thick with fog and a lingering stillness from the night. Hiccup rubbed his hands over his arms in an attempt to warm up. Toothless mimicked the action, and made a mental note that it worked similarly to how he flapped his wings to keep his blood flowing in cold weather.

Their boots (and Hiccup's metal foot) Made holes in the layer of dew on the grass, and they swished an odd, three-booted set of wet tracks down the bridge to the arena. Between the still morning and the importance of the messenger, both Viking and dragon remained quiet, except for the steady tapping of Hiccup's prosthetic on the path.

When they turned the corner, Hiccup could see the dragon still some twenty yards away, and he couldn't help it when his jaw dropped. It was massive, and unlike any dragon he'd ever seen before. Long and snakelike, with sloping ridges on its head that became horns, and an uneven fringe along its back that almost looked soft. It was noble-looking, the embodiment of regality itself. Hiccup was struck dumb to think of where it came from and what, exactly, it was.

"_Heofenas bufan,"_ Toothless breathed beside him, "When Stormfly told me a messenger had come, she did not mention he'd flown around the world to get here."

Hiccup thought for a moment about asking what he meant by that, but he was too busy looking at the dragon, who'd lifted its head as they approached.

It's scales were red. They were duller in shade all down the body, but near the spine and especially around the face, they melted into a fiery, beautiful shade that would make a monstrous nightmare look boring. Its underbelly was a light, muted golden hue that shimmered just as much as its red scales. It had a long, rectangular snout and a strong jaw, and whisker-like protrusions on either side of its nose, which appeared to be the same soft-ish looking flesh as that on the spine. It had wings, Hiccup was sure, but despite their length, they were folded up impossibly thin against its body so that Hiccup had to really look to see them. Its scales were like nothing Hiccup had seen on the dragons at Berk. Hiccup was used to dragons having leathery hides with thick, pebbly scales like lizards. But this dragon's scales were glossy, rounded, and perfect, layered like shingles that moved smoothly over each other. The dragon shimmered like a fish as he moved, and Hiccup thought of his father's fishscale armor.

Like a cat, the dragon drew his long frame up off the ground, to sit and bring its tail to wrap around itself. The end of his tail, Hiccup noticed, was adorned with a large, fan-like spread of the soft fringe from his spine and face.

The two humans, one Viking and one dragon, stopped at a respectful distance. Still overawed as he was, Hiccup didn't feel surprised at all when Toothless bowed low at the waist.

"_You have travelled very far, my friend," _He said in Dragonese. The dragon's whiskers twitched and something like a smile pulled at his scaly lips.

"_I must say, I would never have expected to hear my own tongue from the mouth of a human." _It's Dragonese was accented with a foreign, lyrical diction. If anything, it actually made him easier for Hiccup to understand. _"The Kindelline carried your story far, Master Night Fury_."

"_Please," _Toothless bowed again, slighter this time, "_My name is Tóðléas."_

"_Very well, Master Tóðléas," _the dragon nodded. He looked over to Hiccup. _"And I suppose this is the young Æðelin," _He said, looking at Hiccup with a wizened eye.

"_Gicpa_," Hiccup corrected automatically. The dragon let out a small puff of smoke in pleasant surprise, eyes alight.

"_And they were not lying when they called you Dragontongue," _He said_. "It is a pure honor to meet you both, Master Tóðléas, Young Gicpa_." He bowed his head gracefully. _"I have gone by many names in many tongues, but you both may simply call me Ru."_

Toothless and Hiccup both bowed in acknowledgement. _"We are both grateful for your coming, Ru_," Toothless said, and he really meant it. Ru only nodded, and Hiccup mustered his courage to ask,

"_If I may, Ru…" _He shook off the intense stare that he was getting, probably because of the Dragonese, "_Toothless seems to know, but I do not – where do you come from, that you have travelled so far?"_

Ru laughed, but not mockingly. _"Your people do not yet have maps big or wide enough to find where I come from, young master. It is far, far to the east, across lands you have never seen or heard of, beyond deserts and seas. Civilizations, human and dragon alike, that you have never known. It is another world. But," _He added in a sparkling tone, "_I think you will find it is separated from yours only by distance, and the will to cross it."_

Ru did not know it then, nor did Toothless, nor even Hiccup, but just then, something sparked to life in Hiccup's chest. It was a slow-burning ember that would start a bonfire, a late-blooming bud that would become the biggest rose of the bunch. It was the start of something that would guide Hiccup's heart in years to come, although it would take him years to figure out what, exactly, it was. It was called wanderlust. Hiccup's mind had just been introduced to the idea of a world far, far, far bigger than he'd ever dreamed, and suddenly, he knew he would go there, one day, and see it for himself.

But this was the present, on Berk, and Ru had travelled across that world untold in order to speak to them.

"_The Kindelline sent you,"_ Toothless spoke up, _"because you know something concerning my… condition, I hope."_

"_Indeed I do,_" Ru said, straightening. _"However, to start the conversation, for both of your benefits, I would like to speak with Tóðléas alone." _He nodded at Toothless, and sent a kind eye to Hiccup.

Toothless turned an apologetic look back to his friend. Hiccup couldn't hide his disappointment, but he kept his head held high and nodded. "Of course," He said, in Norse because he forgot. He turned and went down the path until he was out of earshot. He cast a last look at the dragons before he pulled out his sketchbook and began to draw absently.

"_Why send Hiccup away?"_ Toothless asked. Ru rose gracefully onto all four legs and began slowly strolling along the grassy paths behind the arena.

"_Walk with me, and I will tell you." _Toothless fell into step with the other dragon, staying near his head.

"_Is it because you thought he would not understand what you said?" _Toothless asked, feelings lightly offended.

"_Not at all," _Ru said kindly, _"But the matters behind your transformation deal with powers far deeper than language and happenstance. Your young human friend is intelligent, I can see. He has already mastered Dragonese, his dragons call him 'Prince', and his eyes are bright and keen. I did not ask him to leave because he would not understand. If anything, it is _because_ he would understand."_

Toothless frowned. _"How do you mean?"_

Ru found a comfortable spot under a tree and curled up once more. Toothless sat on a mossy boulder. For the moment, Ru chose to ignore Toothless' question. _"Your friend, __Ealdcwén, undoubtedly told you that there are legends, old stories about dragons who became humans, and humans becoming dragons."_

_"She mentioned it," __Toothless said. Ru nodded._

_"She remembers them because I told her those very stories many, many winters ago, when she was still a young dragonling and I a young adventurer. I travelled the world often, then, carrying messages to and fro. When I told her those tales, I never thought it would bring me to this conversation with you."_

_"You were a story-teller?" __Toothless asked, inquisitive._

_"Yes, but not exactly how you might think. You see, when I told Ealdcwén those stories long ago, one thing I did not tell her, nor anyone else who ever heard my stories, is that they are not just legends. They are, in fact, the truth."_

_"You mean the Old Stories are true?" __Toothless' eyebrows shot up._

_"The stories you've heard all your life? The legends? No. Not all of them. But if legends are not rooted in truth, how would we have them at all? Not all of them are true, but some of them are. Unfortunately, the ones that are true have been buried by those that are not."_

_Toothless's mind was sent for a spin with this new information. He had to shake his head to rid clear the thoughts of nesting-time stories and tall tales from his uncle.__"But… you mean, I am not the first dragon to be like this? To have turned into a human?"_

_"No," __Ru said.__ "Only the first to have done so in a long, long time. It is because it has been so long that most dragons discount such a phenomenon as something of myth. But it is not myth. Only a rarer form of the deeper magic inherent to our kind."_

"…_Magic." _Toothless deadpanned. Ru smiled at him.

"_Surely you've heard it said that dragons are magical creatures, tied to this world by something deeper than wings and claws."_

"_Heard it, yes. Believed it…" _His tonefinished his sentence for him.

"_And yet, here you are." _Ru glanced Toothless up and down, human body and all. Toothless put on a chagrined face and looked away.

"_So, magic," _He said. _"Exactly what _kind_ of magic?"_

Ru settled down, lowering himself so that his head was more even with Toothless'. _"You must understand, Tóðléas, perhaps better than even I do, how closely the worlds of dragons and humans are linked. In one way or another."_

Toothless thought of the war, and of Hiccup. _"In one way or another," _He repeated. Ru dipped his head.

"_Yes. It is curious that, even if we try, neither humans nor dragons can quite separate themselves from the other. Have you ever wondered why?"_

Toothless blinked, because no, he hadn't. He remembered that, in the home of his youth, there had been a human settlement not too far from where he grew up. They'd never bothered the dragons. Of course they knew each other, and occasionally squabbled over hunting grounds. They'd never really been together in any way, but never apart, either. Toothless realized he'd never even thought about what it might be like to live without humans. Apart from them, yes, but not _without _them. He frowned.

"_We can live separate lives, of course, as we often do. But humans and dragons stand together on this earth as two sentient, cultured races. Different, but so very similar that we cannot help but be drawn towards each other. The magic I am referring to finds itself deep within this link." _Ru explained, watching Toothless' face carefully. The fury continued to frown, but did not say anything, so Ru continued, _"Humans and dragons do not _need_ each other to survive, not really. But for as long as our races have existed, the balance and harmony between humans and dragons has waxed and waned like the tides, shaping the course of our respective histories. And in some ways, subtle or overt as they may appear, this ebb and flow is guided by magic."_

Toothless gave his new friend a supremely skeptical look. He wanted to protest that magic didn't exist, that of course it didn't, why would it? But then he felt the moss beneath his human hands, and the scratch of human clothes against what should have been dragon legs, and he sighed to himself, because reality was forcing his mind open. Ru was still talking.

"_Historically, in times of great change, of great need, of great importance, this magic awakens from wherever it sleeps and works with history's most vital components, and touches lives such as yours with a power than cannot be ignored." _Ru allowed himself to look pointedly at Toothless, who still felt hyper-aware of his human condition. _"The behwearft," he said._

"'_The exchange'," _Toothless translated.

"_Between human and dragon, yes. It has occurred a handful of times before. This is where the stories come from, of dragons living as humans, of humans speaking in our tongue. Of shapeshifters and half-bloods, with a foot in both worlds."_

"_But…_ _why_?" Toothless had to ask. Ru tilted his head, considering.

"_It depends. The last instance of the behwearft occurred many hundreds of years ago. On an island even farther west than Berk, to the south. A small clan of humans were granted the ability to speak in the dragontongue. The human-dragon civilization there remains strong, and important in the region. Over one thousand years ago, in my homeland, a human king, who hunted dragons, was he himself transformed into a dragon for a time. When he became human again, he was wiser for his experience, and brought harmony between our races. The human kings in my homeland have ever since been called the Dragonborn. Even farther back, one of the very first behwearftas to have ever occurred, a dragon spent nearly a decade in human form, cultivating relationships with the human tribes around her for the betterment of dragons and humans. They are few and far between, the behwearftas, but they never happen without reason. Each behwearft has touched history in some way, be it drastic or long-lasting._"

Toothless' mind was reeling. "_So… so what does _this _mean?"_ He gestured to himself. "_I didn't do anything, I just… woke up like this. I haven't touched history nearly enough to earn some spot with this… this magic of yours. I'm just a stupid night fury who left the nest too early and got extremely lucky afterwards."_

Ru actually laughed. "_You are either very humble, or very blind, Tóðléas. You are the dragon that ended a centuries-long war between dragons and humans. I have already told young Gicpa that the world is a far bigger place than either of you know – what I did not say, is that your Berk is unique among it. Across the world, humans and dragons war on, with only small pockets of neutrality to break the tension. Harmony, dragons and humans living together, is unheard of. Until you came along, you and your one-legged friend._"

"_I only wanted the terror to end,"_ Toothless said, speaking of the Queen.

"_And yet you have sparked a fire that could very well spread across the world. Dragons and humans, together. You and Gicpa are a strong bond, Tóðléas, and I think the deep magic must have chosen you for that very reason. Now that you are human, now that Gicpa understands you, now that you speak and learn and show with each other worlds you never knew before, not only is your bond stronger, it makes you more dangerous, a weapon of history. And who knows what will come from the both of you?"_

Toothless wasn't sure he liked the sound of all this. He was adventurous, yes, reckless, yes, but the magnanimity and scope of what Ru suggested made him feel very small, and very frightened.

"_You need not fear, friend,"_ Ru seemed to read his expression. _"I must apologize. I am a storyteller yet, but only of the past. I have not the gift of prophecy, perhaps only with gut feelings, and ominous words."_ He chuckled, then sobered. _"I only mean to say, the dragons all along the Kindelline now know your Gicpa as Prince. And the more I am told about you, the more I see you together,"_ He glanced up to where Hiccup was bent over a sketchbook, watching his surroundings keenly, _"I can see why they do."_

Toothless turned and looked at Hiccup. A thought struck him_. "And why did you not invite him to stay?" _

Ru shuffled his feet and sighed. "_Tóðléas, I do not know how much of the human experience you have inherited in your behwearft. But there is a large difference between how dragons deal with knowledge, and how humans do. Dragons, we have thick scales and flexible wings to carry us through the harshest of gales untouched and unmoved. But humans? Humans have no scales, or wings. They have minds that imagine and hands that create, eyes to feed curiosity, and feet to take them where their strong hearts lead them. In the realms of knowledge, Dragons are creatures of constantsy and perseveration. Humans are magnets of wonderment and exploration. Dragons have physical fire, but when given new knowledge, the fire of one inquisitive human can outlast that of a thousand dragons."_ He glanced at Hiccup. _"Your human has a bright mind-fire behind his eyes. I do not know if his people have any conception of magic, or of the flow of history and the world. If he were to hear what I have just told you, I fear that he would take it into his human hands and grow too willing to wrestle it, to test magic and fate, to make something of it that it is not meant to be." _

"_If he understood its importance, he would not infringe,"_ but even as he said it, Toothless wondered.

"_Maybe not,"_ Ru allowed. _"But there are reasons why dragons, not humans, have always been the guardians of magic. Were he to hear what I've told you, he would be tempted, because he is human. And I did not want to do him the disservice."_ The dragon breathed in deeply and sat up. Toothless felt their conversation coming to an end. _"I also wanted to make sure that you understood clearly, before you decided what you wished to share with him, and what you wish to keep to yourself."_

"_What, about what you've told me just now?"_

"_Precisely. I do not pretend to know what the best course of action is, nor do I pretend I have a full grasp of how the behwearft works. But I know dragons, and I know humans, and I know that you may not want to share everything with young Gicpa, or else he may grow obsessed with altering the course of what will be your future. But,"_ Ru sighed, _"For all my knowledge of them, humans still baffle me, sometimes. And you know your friend far better than I. I will leave the decision up to you."_

Toothless nodded, actually very grateful for the gesture. He had plenty to consider. _"Thank you,"_ He said. Ru only nodded.

"_You may invite him back over, if you wish."_

Toothless could see Hiccup clearly now, because the sun was rising. "Hiccup!" He called, and the boy's copper hair glinted gold in the sun as he turned his head. Toothless gestured for him to come over. Hiccup closed up his sketchbook and pencil, and jogged over.

"I am sorry about the wait," Toothless told him in Norse, "Ru only wished to speak with me about the… me being human."

"Yeah, that's okay." Hiccup gave a smile, and looked somewhat awkward. "Um…" he glanced back toward the bridge that led to the village. "Listen, the village is probably about to wake up, and, uh, even though they'll hear about this eventually, I don't want to freak them out, or get interrupted, so… want to take a walk to the cove together?" He looked between Toothless and Ru. Toothless nodded, but Ru looked completely blank-faced. After an odd silence, he said in Dragonese,

"_I have learned many human tongues in my time, young master, but I am afraid I am farther west than my language skills can carry me."_

Hiccup turned bright red. "Oh!" He said, and deliberately switched language. "_I'm sorry. I said, my village will be waking by now, and I do not want to be interrupted. Would you like to walk into the forest, to be more alone?"_ Ru smiled, and nodded.

"_Of course_. _Lead the way._"

And so they walked together, talking easily in Dragonese. Once in a while, Hiccup would get stumped on a word or ask one of the dragons to repeat a phrase that he hadn't understood. He always apologized profusely for it, feeling clumsy as the only non-native speaker in the bunch, but both Toothless and Ru were quietly amazed at how fluent he'd become.

Hiccup asked many questions about the big world that Ru had described, and while he answered them all patiently, Ru sent Toothless a knowing look. _Mind-fire_, his eyes reminded Toothless, like a precaution. Toothless looked down at the ground to think.

They reached the cove and sat together in the cool morning sunshine. After a while, Hiccup finally mustered up the courage to ask what he'd been wanting to ask all morning.

"_Um, Ru, do you think… Would it be alright…umm…"_

"_Yes?"_ the tall dragon asked patiently.

Hiccup drummed his fingers against his sketchbook, cheeks blushing red. _"Um, could I, could I draw you?"_

Ru chuckled at the human's shyness. _"Charcoal pictures? Of me?" Hiccup nodded at him. "Of course, young Gicpa, I wouldn't mind at all."_

Hiccup beamed at him, and pulled out his sketchbook. They stayed in the cove together for another hour or so, talking and sharing stories, Hiccup drawing and asking questions (increasingly less shyly) about scales and tails and other dragons from Ru's homeland. Eventually, it was Hiccup's loudly-growling stomach that ended their visit.

"_Yeah, I'm hungry, too,"_ Toothless said with a smile. He stood and dusted off his trousers. _"We should probably be back to the village soon, anyway."_

Hiccup looked alarmed to leave their visitor so soon, but Ru stood with them and said, _"If it is all the same to you and your weyr, I would ask to stay here for a few moons longer. It is a long trip back to the Eastlands. And besides,"_ He smiled at them, _"It would be an honor to enjoy your company again, both of you."_

Toothless smiled, and bowed_. "Of course, friend. As long as you need."_ He glanced about the cove. _"I called this place home for several months, years ago," _Hiccup hid a smile at the memory, _"It is a comfortable place, if you wish to take it as a shelter. There are plenty of fish in the pond, so long as you can catch them."_ He chuckled, as did Ru, who caught the joke. Before the two humans left, Ru stopped Toothless to tell him,

"_Remember what I said about humans. Your decision will be better-educated than mine, I am sure, but consider carefully."  
_  
Toothless nodded seriously, because he _had_ been considering, all morning. When they got back to the house, he was still quietly thinking to himself.

"Where've you been?" Stoick asked them when he found them eating a late breakfast. Hiccup began to hum an answer, but had to finish swallowing before he said,

"_Mælaende eac draca __ærendsecg fram éast, __hwæt__geáseted __oþ __ácwiðeeþ ús-"_

"Hiccup," Toothless interrupted, as Stoick stared at his son like he'd grown antlers. Hiccup looked over at Toothless, not sure why he'd cut in.

"_Hwa?" _He asked, confused.

"Norse," the fury said pointedly. It took a moment for comprehension to dawn, but then Hiccup's eyes went wide and he blushed furiously.

"W-was I…?"

"Yes,"

"Oh." Hiccup looked sheepishly over at his father. "Sorry, dad."

Stoick blinked a few times, and shook his head. He wasn't sure if he was more proud or completely uncomfortable with the fact that his son could speak to dragons. "Talking with dragons all morning, I'll guess," Stoick said, stepping around the table.

"Uhh, yeah. Something like that." Hiccup drummed his fingers awkwardly on the edge of the table as his father left the house. He looked up and locked eyes with Toothless across the table. Toothless was trying very hard not to laugh. The door shut behind Stoick, and he held it in for about two more seconds, but then Hiccup and Toothless both burst out laughing.

"Did you see his _face_?" Toothless asked.

"I didn't even realize I was doing it!" Hiccup said, hiding his face in his hands, even as he smiled.

"Oh, that was priceless. Promise me you'll do it again – oh, oh, in front of _Snotlout_, that will be fun to watch!"

"Oh, gods, they'll think I'm even crazier than they already do."

Toothless was giggling. "It will be _worth it_."

"Ugh," Hiccup shook his head. He wasn't upset, but he was just realizing, "you know, one day I'll just be that crazy old dragon guy who no one understands but you." He shrugged, and looked down at his lap. His face sobered slightly, and he asked, "this… language learning. You, teaching me…" He looked up. "What d'you think it's all for? I mean, in the end, afterward?"

"I don't know," Toothless said, but he was thinking over all the things that Ru had told him, everything that he wondered if he should share with Hiccup. He smiled with the side of his mouth, eyes looking somewhere beyond Berk. "Something amazing."

* * *

**A/N:**There you go! Hopefully you guys like this chapter a bit more than I do. And in case you hadn't guessed it, Ru is based off of a Chinese dragon and is, obviously, supposed to be from the HtTYD-verse equivalent of China. So yeah, he's travelled a ways.

**Translations:**

_Heofenas bufan: _Skies above

_Mælaende eac draca __ærendsecg fram éast, __hwæt__geáseted __oþ __ácwiðeeþ ús: _Speaking with a dragon messenger from the east, who came to tell us-


	12. Scars

**A/N: EMOTIONAL ANGST WARNING!**

I promise this will not be the end of all silliness/fun stuff, but I think it's high time Toothless had some emotional trouble with this whole 'being human' thing, don't you? Because honestly, how would _you _deal with all of this?

* * *

Toothless was growing increasingly tense. It'd been just over two days since Ru had faced him with the choice of what he could or could not share with Hiccup, and it was eating Toothless alive. Even as a human himself now, Toothless didn't pretend to understand what humans thought, how their minds worked. Should he tell Hiccup? If he didn't, what would happen? But if he _did_…

Toothless distracted himself by thinking more largely of the situation. _Bewearft_. But what _for?_ Sure, Ru had talked about it in lofty, reverent tones of history and change and on and on, but Toothless sniffed to himself, considering as he often did the irritability of the human nose and shifted his shoulders, wishing, not for the first time, to feel the second pair of shoulders that should hold up his wings. He growled to himself and dug his fingers into his hair.

He hadn't realized it, but when they sent word to the Kindelline weeks ago, he'd been expecting them to show up, not only with answers, but _solutions_. He'd expected someone to tap him atop the head or something else just as simple, and just be himself again, scales, wings, Norse-less tongue and all. It was a foolish hope, but now that it was denied, now that he was still human and saddled with a heavy choice that brought up thoughts of worry and potential betrayal, his disappointment bubbled up to manifest anger.

He wasn't mad at Hiccup, or Ru, or anyone else, but yet he _was_ mad. He was both mad at nothing and everything, and it showed.

Usually, whenever Hiccup went to the forge or out into the woods to gather wood or herbs, Toothless would follow and enjoy the time together. But now, he just let Hiccup go on alone, so he could spent some silent time with himself and pretend that he wasn't sulking. Hiccup didn't act like he noticed, but Toothless knew he did.

Sometimes he would just watch Hiccup quietly, trying to imagine this wiry, brain-driven human misinterpreting the forces behind the _bewearft_, trying to shape history with his own hands. Of course Toothless knew it was pointless, but as Ru had said, humans thought in different ways. Who was Toothless to say what Hiccup might do? But then, it was _Hiccup_. He was practically an extension of Toothless himself. They flew together, talked to each other, explored the world together. But then, that was the problem, Toothless thought. Because how much more leverage would Hiccup have over him, then, even if he decided to conquest parts of the world he was never meant to touch?

Toothless dug his head further down, tucking his knees up to his brow and wanting for a moment to burn his thoughts to ash. Only, of course, he didn't have firebreath anymore.

Hiccup came in the room a little while later, and Toothless had to act like nothing was amiss. The fact that he couldn't even make himself smile was a testament to his inner turmoil.

"Hey, bud," Hiccup said, and Toothless wondered if Hiccup thought he was making the smile look natural, because he was failing, "Fishlegs asked if I wanted to go out with them at the ring today… Um… I mean, I know we can't, er, fly, but it's a nice day out… do you want to come with?"

Toothless shrugged, not wanting to say yes but not wanting to see the heartbreak on Hiccup's face when he said no.

The shrug was interpreted as a yes, and Toothless shared an awkward walk to the arena with his human. He felt incredibly guilty, because he knew all the awkward air was his fault and his fault alone, what with his moodiness the past days and his inability to speak of it to Hiccup. Poor Hiccup, longsuffering Hiccup who really ought to have smacked Toothless upside the head for all of this. It made Toothless feel even worse.

When they got to the ring, Stormfly was the first to badger him about the Kindelline visitor. He made his answers short because he didn't want to talk about it. But they kept on asking him questions, and when he snapped back, it angered them (Hookfang particularly) and that, in turn, made his mood even more sour.

The humans stayed largely on the ground with Hiccup, perhaps out of respect for the fact that Toothless couldn't fly. But after an hour or so, they mounted up and flew in lazy, free patterns around the sky. Astrid landed at one point and asked if Hiccup wanted to take a turn with Stormfly or one of the others. Stormfly chittered in with her own suggestion,

"_What about you, Tóðléas?" _She smiled at him. Toothless looked up, eyes like a stunned deer.

"M-me?" He stuttered in Norse, and glared darkly. _"I'm fine, thanks," _And continued brooding.

"Oh, come on, Toothless," Hiccup said kindly, having caught the exchange. "you don't have to be embarrassed, she's trying to be nice." And of course she was, Toothless knew that. But what neither Hiccup nor Stormfly knew, which he had no intention of telling them, is that his human heart fluttered painfully at the thought of flying and falling and high places. He was _afraid_. And the unnaturalness of it made him want to cry, because he shouldn't be like this. _I want to go home_, the boyish whine came to mind.

"No," He said shortly, because he didn't want to talk with any of them. Thoughts of humans and dragons and what was natural and what wasn't, thoughts of _bewearftas_ and kindellines and convoluted eastern dragons talking about history and secrets and Hiccup, and he just wanted to get away, but he couldn't say so.

Hiccup had come over and now grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. "Oh come on, it's fun, I promise."

It was a reaction, he would try to tell himself later, just a reaction. Toothless flung his arm and hit Hiccup's hand away, none to gently. "I said _no_."

Hiccup could see it wasn't just stubbornness, and looked suddenly contrite. "Okay," He said carefully, the shocked hurt in his voice making Toothless simultaneously angrier and guiltier. He looked away.

The other teens were circling in to land, all oblivious to the tense confrontation taking place. Toothless looked up at all of them and wanted to tell their dragons to leave.

"Toothless," Hiccup said softly, making no move to touch him again, although it looked like he wanted to. "what's wrong, bud?"

Toothless' jaw was impossibly tight, and his thoughts had now steeped long enough, it was impossible to pretend. The other teenagers and dragons and crowded into the arena and Toothless almost wanted to cry because he felt himself charging toward his breaking point and the last thing he needed was an audience.

"Nothing," he spat, and it tasted like sour milk.

Hiccup frowned. _"That's a lie_," He said, quietly in Dragonese so only Toothless would hear. For second, Toothless looked right at him, his gaze trying to communicate his internal panic and his will not to talk about it.

"Hiccup, you coming?" Astrid asked uncertainly. She could see something was amiss, but she wasn't sure what.

"Come on, bud, it'll be fun," Hiccup insisted, and Toothless bristled again. Could he not _see_? "I know it's not the same, but flying is still pretty great, even as a human."

_Human_. The word wrung in Toothless' ears, and gave him pause enough to let Hiccup tug lightly on his hand again. When Toothless was forced to step forward, he flung his arm again.

"_No!"_ he said in Dragonese. Hiccup turned.

"_What is wrong with you?" _He looked hurt, not really angry.

Toothless wanted to say 'nothing' again, but now _everyone_ was looking at them. Astrid, Stormfly, the dragons, the teens. They all looked so confused. Toothless was humiliated. He looked back down to Hiccup.

"_I can't_," He whispered.

Hiccup crossed his arms. _"Why not?"_

"_I can't!" _because really, where would he start?

"_Toothless, come on, you're not making any sense," _

"_No!" _Toothless exclaimed. He was aware of all the eyes on him. Still, he continued on in Dragonese – if they were going to have an audience, at least only half of them would actually understand. _"Hiccup, stop, I just… I can't."_

Now Hiccup _did_ look angry. Frustrated. _"I don't understand,"_ He said flatly.

"_No, you don't," _Toothless snapped, far harsher than he needed to. Tense thoughts kept inside made his words sting. _"You can't, because you're…. you're just…"_

"_What are you talking about?"  
_

"_Do you think I asked for this?!" _Toothless finally snapped, and internally screamed _NO_ at himself because he knew after all these weeks of humanity, his mental capacity to cope had just cracked in half, and the floodgates were aimed right at Hiccup. _"Do you think I like this?! Do you think just because you say something is good it makes it so? I'm not a human, Gicpa, I know I look like one, but I'm not - I'm a dragon! A dragon! I want to be myself again, wings and scales! I thought I would have answers but now I don't and I have to decide and-" _his eyes suddenly caught on Hiccup's face, which reeked of incomprehension. "_But how could you understand?!"_

"_Toothless," _Hiccup said, trying to stay calm even as Toothless exploded in front of them all, _"I'm sorry I don't understand… why don't you tell me?"_

"_I can't," _Toothless wailed, because of everything that Ru had said about humans and because of all his own uncertainty. _"I can't tell you, don't you see?" _Hiccup's expression said that no, he didn't, and Toothless growled at the unfamiliar sense of disconnect with his best friend. _"No, of course you don't," _he growled in pure frustration, _"you're just… you're just a ground-bound, blind-eyed, crippled human, you would never be able to-" _But before he could say the last word, their eyes met and Toothless realized what he'd said. His face fell into pure horror. He glanced for a second at all the dragons around him, their eyes wide with shock at the insult. Then he looked back at Hiccup and he wanted the ground to swallow him. Not knowing what else to do, Toothless turned and ran.

Hiccup stood there, looking like he'd been slapped.

Silence reigned. Hiccup didn't move, nor did anyone else. Stormfly was the first to break it, and chittered a quiet,

"_Æðelin, I'm sure he didn't meant to-"_

Hiccup shook his head, and she quieted.

"Hiccup?" Astrid asked. Unlike the dragons, the Vikings hadn't understood the argument. "…What did he say?" She asked nervously. She could see the pure hurt in Hiccup's face, and knew it must've been bad.

"Nothing," He said quietly, the lie a signal that he didn't want to talk about it. The Vikings looked around at their dragons, who looked serious and perhaps just as shocked as Hiccup, then around at each other.

Quietly, Hiccup turned and looked to where Toothless had fled. His expression unreadable, he quietly left the arena, his prosthetic tapping painfully loud in the silence.

* * *

Toothless was the worst, most terrible dragon in the world, and an even worse friend. He growled at the skies and scrubbed at his stupid human cheeks with stupid human tears and that stupid, irritable human nose and contorting face that were soiling his dignity. He stormed into the forest, trying to find any secluded spot where he could… what did he intend to do? There was nothing he could do to fix this. He couldn't turn himself into a dragon, he couldn't make himself calm down, or make a decision about Hiccup. He couldn't turn around and face Hiccup – not after what he'd said, not when he was like _this_. So in confusion and anger, Toothless eventually sunk down against a tree and discovered that crying could be exhausting.

He was much too occupied, his ears and eyes too clogged to hear the approach. _"Master Tóðléas?" _Ru's accent was drifting from some point above him. Toothless' immediate reaction was to curl in on himself.

_"Oh, skies," _he moaned hoarsely. He thought it would be a miracle if Ru could understand him through all the snot and tears, _"just leave me alone, please."_

Ru didn't move or say anything, his steady breathing didn't even falter. He just came around settled himself beside Toothless, his long body a loose semicircle around where the human-dragon sat. He wasn't even looking at Toothless while he sat, just waiting quietly for the other to calm down.

By the time his sobs had worn out, Toothless wanted nothing more to just pass out into sleep so that he wouldn't have to think about his humiliation in front of Ru or the painful throbbing in his head. But as he dug his head into his knees and enjoyed the darkness, Ru broke in to make sure he wouldn't be able to nod off.

"_Something troubles you,"_ he said gently. It was a gross understatement.

"_I don't want to be human,"_ Toothless said, feeling like a miserable, whining hatchling. _"I've had my fill, I want to be me again_."

"_You speak as though being 'you' is determined by the body you wear," _Ru said, and the words sounded to wise for Toothless to like them. He didn't want to be philosophic about this. He could do that when he didn't hurt quite so much.

"_How do I change back?" _He said, sniffing noisily and looking up with red eyes. _"Please tell me you know how I can change back."_

Ru sighed. The eastern dragon's scales rattled musically as he lowered himself so that his head was on level with Toothless. _"I am a storyteller, Tóðléas,_" He said, _"I am not a magician."_

"_And what would your stories say?" _Toothless asked, fishing for hope.

"_They would say that time may be the best answer. The bewearft is a quest, my friend. Only, a quest where you do not quite know the object, or the destination. So perhaps it is better called a journey."_

"_So you don't know when I'll change back."_

"_No, only that you _will_. Of that you need not fear."_

"_But what could I possibly be… be questing for? What is there that I haven't already achieved? What am I supposed to _do?_"_

"_I wish I could tell you," _Ru sounded genuine. _"But I would be willing to bet the skies themselves that it has to do with your Gicpa._"

"_Oh?" _And just the topic made guilt ball up in Toothless' gut.

"_I'm not sure what, exactly. But he is the catalyst in all of this, it would make sense that he may yet be the object."_

Toothless didn't answer, and begun staring off into nothingness, trying hard not to think about Hiccup but doing so anyway.

"_I do not pretend to understand everything about your relationship with the boy, Tóðléas,_" Ru sighed, _"but I daresay you may need some prodding with this decision of yours. So I'll just tell you: tell him."_

"_Tell him?" _Toothless hadn't expected to feel so alarmed at the idea, _"Tell him what?"_

"_Everything. Everything I told you when I first arrived."_

"_But… but you said-"_

"_I did. Because I did not fully understand it, but you two are part of each other." _The dragon cast a look back toward the Viking village. _"I have heard how he helps you to fly. I can scarcely imagine the trust you have in him, he in you. Your minds must be in some tandem with each other – enough to spark a bewearft." _Ru turned back around to peer at Toothless keenly. "_I believe the young Prince is more dragon than most all humans, and you, perhaps, more human than all dragons."_

"_Of course I am, right now_,"

"_That is not what I meant."_

Toothless looked up at him, but didn't say anything. He remembered the conversation he'd had with Hiccup weeks ago on the roof, about the dragon-human and human-dragons that they were.

"Brothers," Toothless said in Norse.

"_What?"_ Ru asked. Toothless shook his head.

"_Gicpa and I."_

They sat silently for a while more, until Toothless felt at last that his tears were fading, the dregs in his throat dissipating.

"_I am sorry I have disappointed you, friend. I will remain here on Berk as long as I may be able to help. But for now I think you have other matters to resolve."_

Toothless frowned and looked up at him. _"What?"_

"_I do not know exactly what the object of your bewearft will be, but I do not believe it includes quarreling with the boy who made you whole again, Tóðléas_."

Toothless couldn't decide whether to be embarrassed or angry. He squinted up at the huge dragon. _"How the skies did you-"_

"_Friends of our hearts bear the scars of our claws," _Ru said, standing to his full height. _"but apology turns scars into symbols of love." _He began to walk away, regal as ever.

"_What?" _Toothless asked confusedly from his seat.

"_An old proverb from my homeland, master Tóðléas,_" he said, _"It means, get up and go say you're sorry."_

Toothless felt like a chastised child. Of course he would say he was sorry – he _was_. He knew he would have to tell Hiccup that. But he was scared.

"_Apologize. Talk to him. Tell him whatever you feel you should. Anything at all. And lastly, Tóðléas,_" Ru looked at him over his shoulder, _"Do not worry about your bewearft. It will not last forever_."

But it was the _uncertainty_ of all that hurt the most. Still, as Ru strolled peacefully away, Toothless made himself get up and start shuffling back the village, his head hanging with guilt.

* * *

He found Hiccup by accident. It turned out that the boy had sought solitude as Toothless had – not to cry, but just to be alone. Toothless stepped on a twig as he approached, and Hiccup turned to look. When he saw who it was, he clenched his jaw and turned around, looking down at the ground, where he'd been drawing in the dirt with a stick, as he often did.

Toothless came over and sat down wordlessly beside him. Hiccup was only paying attention to his drawing.

"I'm sorry," Toothless made himself say, and for however hard it was to say, it felt like it did little to help. "I… I spoke because I was mad – not at you, but just at… at all that's happened. I did not mean what I said." But then, his internal voice demanded, why had he said it at all?

"S'okay," Hiccup muttered, because he was used to taking punches and rolling through the worst of bruises. Toothless didn't know what to say next, so he looked down to see what Hiccup was drawing. He frowned. It was_ Hiccup_, but the drawing didn't have a prosthetic leg, nor any eyes, and he seemed to be sprawled out uselessly on the ground.

_A ground-bound, blind-eyed, crippled human._

Toothless wanted the ground to swallow him again.

He looked around and found another stick. He dug it into the ground of Hiccup's drawing. Far clumsier than Hiccup, of course, he doodled in a leg, and two big eyes. He paused, and then, biting his lip, he arched two big wings from either side of Hiccup's back.

Hiccup looked down at it, and after a moment, over at him. "Not a cripple?" He asked. Toothless ducked his head in shame.

"_Gicpa_, you are the exact opposite of all things crippled. I was stupid to have said otherwise."

"And I'm not blind."

"Your eyes are just like mine."

"And what about those wings?" He looked down at their collaboration, which, severed from its context, looked rather silly.

"You taught me to fly," Toothless told him simply.

Hiccup nodded. They sat quietly next to each other for a while. Totohless eventually felt he had to say again, "I am sorry, _Gicpa_. F-…forgive me?"

"Of course," Hiccup said. Then added, "…but will you tell me?"

Toothless breathed in, and a million different refusals went through his mind before he said, "Everything."

So while Hiccup doodled, Toothless came a bit closer and made himself comfortable. He spoke of dragons, and magic, and old stories, and of Ru and of humans. It all felt very odd, because he knew none of it would actually_ help_. Hiccup couldn't fix anything that he was worrying about. He couldn't control magic, he couldn't predict the future, he couldn't tell Toothless when he would turn back into a dragon, or what exactly he was meant to do in the meantime. But he shared anyway, because Hiccup was Hiccup, and Toothless was Toothless, and they'd never _not_ shared anything. They would bear the knowledge together, or not at all. He was only just now realizing how important that was.

They ended up with Hiccup reclining against a fallen-log seat, and Toothless lying on his back, each quiet after Toothless' long diatribe. The dragon had no idea what Hiccup thought of it all. His gut was still churning with uncertainty over the apology, of Hiccup's forgiveness. He felt a strong tug that he remembered having as a dragon. Back then, he'd press his head into Hiccup's hand for a scratch, for a pat, for a reassurance. But Toothless knew that kind of interaction between two humans was just downright odd. He sighed to himself.

Hiccup glanced back at him. Sometimes, Hiccup seemed to hear Toothless' thoughts. With a certain timbre of sigh that Toothless had come to interpret as _'oh this is all so strange, but to hel with that,'_ Hiccup scooted back to sit by Toothless' head. He dropped his hand and began to run his fingers through Toothless' hair, something akin to a pat he might've given him when he was a dragon. He didn't tell Toothless, he had memories of his mother stroking his hair like this after she'd scolded him and made him apologize.

"It'll be alright, bud," Hiccup said, still working to overcome his earlier hurt and now the awkward twinge to the interaction, "we'll figure it out, in the end. Together, yeah?"

Toothless was nodding off. (only a little bit, he told himself.) "Yeah," he agreed. The pangs of guilt weren't quite gone yet, but they felt less like knives and more like honey spread on cuts that would scar.

Hadn't Ru said something about scars?

Toothless fell asleep.

* * *

**A/N: **I _promise_, the next chapter will be 100x happier and lighter-hearted. I think I'm going to have another chapter or two of filler, plotless chapters (with a little plot thrown in, of course) and then we'll start building up for the climax that will signal the beginning of the end of this story.


	13. A Little Bit of Everything

They spent much of the next few days in Ru's company. Hiccup filled half of a sketchbook with drawings of the eastern dragon, and some quick paintings as well. He asked many questions about the world, about dragons, and some tentative ones about the magic that Toothless had told him about. Toothless acted as a quiet bystander to admire Ru's cool and undeniably fond handling of Hiccup and his inquisitive nature. Toothless got the feeling that Ru was familiar with humans, in one way or another, and very fond of them in general.

Sometimes, Hiccup would begin to doze in the afternoon sun, and Toothless and Ru would talk alone. In was in these conversations that Toothless felt an old, forgotten homesickness awaken in his chest. The Berkian dragons were good company, but they were rural and detached from the continental life that Toothless remembered from the days of his youth. Ru was a spring of knowledge, news, even gossip from the lands Toothless hadn't thought of in years.

"_You remember your Weyr_," Ru observed one late afternoon, even though Toothless had never mentioned anything about his former life. He looked up in surprise. When he didn't respond, Ru said, "_I flew past only a handful of night fury settlements this side of the Heart of the World. Am I wrong in guessing you belong to the northwestern coast?"_

Belong. _Belonged_, Toothless corrected silently. _"It is where I was hatched," _he replied. Ru nodded.

"_How long has it been since you were there?" _He asked carefully, sensing the fury's unease.

Toothless sighed, fiddling with a blade of grass and not looking at the other dragon. _"Many years_," He said.

Ru nodded slowly. _"Well,_" he said, _"you should know, it is as beautiful as it ever was, green valleys, rocky cliffs." _He glanced at Toothless, trying to read his emotions. _"I passed over a Furyn weyr, on my way. I did not stop to greet them, but they seemed a healthy clutch."_

"_How many were there?" _Toothless voice was cracking, because the names and faces he hadn't thought of in years where appearing in his mind's eye. His parents and brothers were among them. _Thirty,_ he anticipated Ru's answer to be about what he remembered.

"_Four dozen or so,"_ Ru answered. Toothless' eyebrows shot up. They'd grown. The weyr had grown so much. He wondered how many names and faces he would not know. _"The land has been good to them, I think. A human settlement lies not too far away,"_ Yes, and Toothless remembered them, kindly, but fearful and skittish folk_. "But they seem to ignore each other, the weyr and the humans. Time has been good to your family, Tóðléas."_

_Yes, without me_, Toothless thought. He didn't like the feeling of his heart falling to his gut. He glanced over at Hiccup, and made himself wrestle his heart back into place. This was his home, now.

* * *

"No, more like this," Hiccup grabbed Toothless' hand and gently guided it through the strokes. Toothless was biting his lip in determination, gripping the pencil tightly. He'd learned to read some time ago, and had been picking up tremendous speed in written vocabulary. Penmanship, on the other hand, was slow going.

"Do vikingr keep many written records?" He asked as he tried the runes again. Hiccup shrugged.

"Sure. I know the Meatheads have a whole library – although knowing the Meatheads, it might only have two books to its name. But Vikings have a lot of lore, lot of history. Some of us bother to write it down, now and again."

"You mean like the stories with Thor?" Toothless asked enthusiastically. Hiccup rolled his eyes with a slight smile. "Yeah, like those." Several weeks ago, Hiccup had nicked some of the old story books from the mead hall for Toothless to practice reading. The fury was particularly taken with the tales of Thor, god of lightning. He'd begun to claim that _night furies_ had actually been the ones to forge Thor's hammer, Mjölnir, and were in fact Thor's very favorite dragon in all the world. (Hiccup had refrained from mentioning skrills). Both ideas were too blasphemous for Hiccup to repeat, but too funny for him to refute.

"You think I could end up in a story with Thor?" Toothless asked thoughtfully.

"Only because you'd tick him off with your wild stories and he'd come down to pulverize you." Hiccup peered over his shoulder. "Wild claims and horrible penmanship, anyway. Come on, like this," And they started the runes again.

"I could totally end up in a story with Thor. With all the other heroes."

"The heroes always die, Toothless."

"…Yeah, but I'm sure I could find a way to-"

"_Runes_, Toothless."

Toothless sighed and picked up the pencil, mind alight with stories, not all of them having to do with Thor.

* * *

It wasn't very long after Toothless had begun to write legibly that he'd approached Hiccup to request his own journal. Of course Hiccup agreed, and made sure he gone a nice thick one for Toothless to practice in. But to Hiccup's surprise, Toothless never wrote in it, or doodled in it. Not at first. He just looked at it, flipped through the pages, counting and peering at them like he was evaluating.

But then, when he finally began writing in his new book, he didn't stop. He'd stay up until the wee hours of the morning and set his hands in all sorts of cramps so that he could write in his journal, page after page after page.

"What are you writing?" Hiccup eventually had to ask, after keeping quiet for days.

Toothless actually looked sheepish. "A story," He admitted.

"Oh? What kind of story?" Hiccup asked, and smirked. "It have Thor it in?"

"No," Toothless answered seriously, "Just us."

Hiccup looked over at him with a clear expression. "Us?" He asked for confirmation. Toothless sighed and looked up at Hiccup with a shrug.

"I thought that… so long as I'm still like this, I… well, I ought to use the opportunity to record my story – _our_ story. You know, write it all out." He ducked back down to begin writing again. "You need human hands to write, anyway."

"Oh," Hiccup said after a while. _Don't ask it, don't ask it_, he told himself, but then his curiosity burned through his courtesy. "Can I read it?" He asked.

Toothless blushed, and adjusted the book in his lap. Hiccup felt bad for asking, because he knew that reading someone else's writing could be like looking into their mind. He expected Toothless to say no, so he was surprised when the fury only ducked his head and said,

"Yes, but not yet." Toothless brought his pencil back down to the page, using the runes and words that Hiccup had taught him to record a story that Hiccup had never heard.

* * *

Not many people knew that Ru was on Berk. The dragons knew, insofar as they knew there was a Kindelline messenger staying on Berk because of Toothless. A few of them, including Stormfly, had seen Ru, and Ru had spent many afternoons visiting Ealda, regaling old tales to her and remembering days gone by.

Dragons aside, Hiccup was the only Viking who had met Ru. He'd had to tell his father and friends _about_ the dragon of course, because he was constantly gone to go see him, and Gobber had seen some of the many sketches Hiccup made, but remained mostly silent on the matter. They'd all understood that Ru valued solidarity, and had been pleasantly un-pestering about seeing the dragon.

It was actually _Hiccup_ who had, very nervously, asked if Ru couldn't allow at least one other person to make his acquaintance.

He'd seemed taken off guard, but was amiable toward Hiccup's request. _"And who might you have in mind, master Gicpa?_" He asked. Toothless snorted loudly, having made the correct guess in seconds.

_"The æfenhlytta, I'm guessing,"_ Toothless said slyly. Hiccup glared.

_"Oh?"_ Ru asked_, __"I did not realize you were half of a pair,"_ He looked at Hiccup.

_"I'm not,"_ He glared hard at Toothless, who was fighting laughter. _"Toothless uses the word in jest. She's just a friend."_

_"Yes, and I'm a butterfly,"_ Toothless said. Hiccup's face was burning red, but he hoped if he glared hard enough it wouldn't look quite as undignified.

_"Well, in the case that she is your mate, Gicpa, I would be happy to meet her."_

_"She's not my mate!"_ And a term so base as mate made Hiccup's face go even redder.

_"Honestly, I just do not understand why you humans are so touchy about it,"_ Toothless said, pulling a dismissive eye-roll._ "It does not have to be nearly so big a deal as you make of it. Find a good match, prove your compatibility, settle down, raise a clutch… honestly, it's not that hard."_

_"Speak from experience, do you?"_ Hiccup bit.

_"Well, no, but-"_

_"Shut up, then."_

Ru made a small, amused noise. Toothless shook his head._"Experience or not, you humans and your mating is absolutely ridiculous."_ He looked up at Ru. _"In case you haven't learned, Ru, humans have the most bizarre mating rituals in the world."_

_"Is that so?"__ Ru sounded like he did, in fact, already know, but Toothless must have missed the tone._

_"Instead of mating in a season like all sensible creatures do, they opt to dance about each other for years in as a preface to the actual mating. It's very strange."_ A though struck, and Toothless added, _"though I suppose it's not really dancing. In fact, it seems to be all about talking."_ Then another thought struck, and he had to correct himself, _"Alright, well, it's not always about talking. Even so, it is still all about mouths."_

_"Toothless!"_ Hiccup snapped, even as he prayed for the grown to swallow him.

Because of the look on Hiccup's face, Toothless nearly collapsed in laughter.

_"Oh, come on,"_ Hiccup growled with crimson cheeks, _"Surely dragons get embarrassed about some things too,__"_

_"Well of course we do,"_ Toothless said easily, _"But not anything as ridiculous as mating__," _

_"Well, what, then?" _Hiccup asked, crossing his arms. Toothless looked at him incredulously.

_"You don't actually think I'm going to tell you, do you?"_

Hiccup scoffed and tossed his head. _"Worth a shot,__" _He grumbled.

_"If memory serves,"_ Ru cut in, _"I believe there are a few things that night furies in particular have, hmm… shall we say, soft spots for."_

The change in Toothless' expression was instantaneous, and he turned his best _you wouldn't dare _look on Ru.

_"Really?" _Hiccup asked interestedly.

_"Oh yes. I'm sure Tóðléas could tell you all about it." _He turned an amused glance over at the dragon-human.

_"C__ould he?"_ Toothless asked.

_"Hmm, perhaps not. …Care to walk with me, Gicpa?" _Ru asked, rising.

_"Oh, definitely,__" _Hiccup's eyes lit up and he jogged up to the dragon's side as he began to stroll through the forest.

"_N-now wait a minute," _Toothless stood, unsure of what to do. _"What, exactly, are you planning on telling him? He's still practically a hatchling! You can't just go on talking about… about those things!"_

"_Human!" _Hiccup called back. _"And I resent the hatchling comment."_

When Toothless finally found his feet to jog after them, it seemed that Ru had already imparted some secret knowledge, which was leading Hiccup's face to twitch as he tried not to giggle.

_"What did you tell him?_" Toothless demanded, looking between Ru and Hiccup. Neither dragon nor Viking said anything, and only walked away, eyes alight with amusement. _"What?!_" Toothless looked so concerned about it all, Hiccup couldn't help it when he burst into laughter.

He would never bother explaining to Toothless that Ru hadn't actually told him _anything_. But letting Toothless _think_ he had put the fury through enough awkwardness and fidgeting that Hiccup felt vindicated.

"_Oh,"_ Hiccup said innocently through his laughter, _"Nothing, really."_ He silently vowed to himself to keep up this charade of secret information for as long as he could, if only to see Toothless squirm. He had months of teasing to catch up on, at least – and besides, when else would he get the chance to see Toothless turn _that_ shade of red?

* * *

"This is a horrible idea."

"This is a _wonderful_ idea."

They stood together in the doorway, looking outside. Hiccup's face was the embodiment of apprehension, but Toothless was grinning like a toddler on his way to the Mayday festival.

It was, by the most technical of definitions, daylight outside. But in front of the sun was a thick, dark blanket of cloud, which was dumping rain down in sheets – a real deluge. There was no lightning, thunder, or strong storm gales to make it all _truly_ dangerous, but the god-sized buckets dumping from the sky gave Hiccup enough reasons to stay indoors.

Toothless, however, did not operate by Hiccup's human logic, and saw the storm as a golden opportunity. Still smiling, Toothless dropped to the floor and started rolling up his trousers.

"What are you doing?" Hiccup asked, panic rising.

"Come on!" He said, reaching over and rolling up Hiccup's trouser leg for him.

"Wait, _what?"_ Hiccup looked out to the muddy ground, eyes wide and brows low.

"It'll be _fun!_" Toothless insisted, and yanked on Hiccup's boot. The Viking pitched forward and had to hold onto the doorframe as the dragon wrestled his shoe off.

"Toothless!" He cried in protest, "I am _not_ going to-"

"Oh, yes you are!" Toothless stood and charged out the door, scooping Hiccup up onto one shoulder as he went.

The two stumbled out into the watery fray as one heap, Toothless whooping in laughter, Hiccup yelping indignantly.

"Ow, oh, ow, that's cold!" Hiccup said, raindrops stinging his skin.

"Isn't it great?" Toothless asked, basking in rain. After his first experience with bathing, he'd developed an affinity for water – it felt amazing on human skin, he told Hiccup whenever the Viking caught him playing in streams or buckets.

"Are you going to put me down, now?" Hiccup demanded, face growing red from how he was hanging half upside-down across Toothless' back. Toothless heaved him up and set him down on solid ground.

Well, _solid_ was a relative term.

"This is new," Toothless said, wiggling his bare toes experimentally in the soft, thoroughly muddy ground.

"Oh, ew," Hiccup complained when his foot hit the ground and mud began to seep up between his toes. Then, he began to keel sideways. "Oh, come on," He had to reach down and yank at his prosthetic to pull it free of the mud. "I told you this was a bad idea!" He shouted above the sound of rain, hair soaked and plastered to his face.

"Oh, come on, _Gicpa_!" Toothless beamed at him, "what happened to your spirit of adventure?" And as easily as anything, Toothless reached down for a handful of mud, and slung it right at Hiccup's face. It landed on his hair, leaving his eyes wide and untouched so he could turn and glare in shock. It only made Toothless grin wider, and laugh.

"Oh, you did _not_ just-"

"What, angry? Then come and get me, Fishbone!"

"_What _did you call me?"

Toothless laughed, and ran.

"You useless reptile!" Hiccup stooped, grabbed a handful of mud, and charged in pursuit. Now that he was running, his prosthetic didn't have time to sink into the ground, although he stumbled more than he ran. He didn't notice, but Toothless checked his pace and looked back often enough to make sure he didn't fall. He even let Hiccup catch up before he ran out of breath. Still, he wasn't about to just _let_ him slam a pile of mud in his face. He dodged and turned and ducked, now showing no mercy to Hiccup and his leg.

"I thought Night Furies were supposed to have dark hides," Hiccup said, and Toothless didn't realize what he was getting at until Hiccup had grabbed him and climbed up onto his back. "About time you looked the part!" He said, reaching around and smacking mud straight into Toothless' face.

The dragon-human sputtered and spat, a sudden wave of rage coming over him. Then, an idea. He turned his head to glare and Hiccup, who laughed for a split second before he saw the glint-eyed expression beneath all the mud. Glancing behind himself, Toothless tipped himself backward carefully.

"No, no nonono, Toothless!" Hiccup cried, but it was too late. Toothless fell to the ground with a muddy splash, Hiccup sandwiched between a heavier body and a huge mud puddle. Toothless laughed at Hiccup's cry, and began to get up. "Nope!" Hiccup leaped up, grabbed, and yanked. Hiccup was covered in mud on his back, and now Toothless had a front to match.

Soon, they were _completely_ covered in mud, whooping and hollering at each other and how utterly ridiculous they looked, at the feel of mud and water running down their faces, through their hair, and not caring about any of it worth a rat's behind.

Hiccup screwed his eyes shut and turned his face up into the rain, scrubbing away mud so he could see. When he looked back down at himself, he was still filthy. And shivering. "We should get back," He told Toothless. The other boy turned, smile wide, chest heaving from laughter beneath a sopping tunic that clung.

"Aww," he said, although he was growing tired and cold, too.

"I need a bath and a warm fire," Hiccup said in explanation, and turned toward the house. He hadn't realized how far they'd ran until he saw how far he had to walk back to the house.

"Oh, alright," Toothless relented, because a fire _did_ sound nice. He started after Hiccup, bare feet swashing satisfyingly in the mud. He watched Hiccup stumble once, twice, three times in two steps before he jogged up beside him. "None of that," He said, and took Hiccup's arms and drew them up around his neck. Then he grabbed his legs behind the knees and carried him piggy-back all the way to the house.

"You're much heavier than I remember," He teased.

"And you're a whole lot bonier."

"You're not one to talk on that, you know," Toothless readjusted Hiccup's lank more dramatically than he needed to.

"Oi! Watch it, Useless." The only reason Hiccup didn't smack him was because he had to hold on.

"Isn't that what they used to call you?" Toothless peered up at his cargo.

Hiccup scoffed, affronted, but Toothless laughed. "Oh, don't worry, _Æðelin,_" he emphasized the title meaningfully.

"You too," Hiccup said.

Toothless let out laugh. "Yeah, walking contradictions, you and I," Toothless heaved Hiccup up higher on his back. "Two Useless Princes."

"Useless, one without Teeth, the other with perpetual Hiccups."

Toothless snorted. "Or something like that."

They made it to the house without dissolving into another mudfight, but they were both shivering violently when they finally stumbled in through the back door. Stoick was baffled and angry to see so much mud and water all over his house, but the two boys were grinning and giggling in such a disarming manner that he only sighed and got up to find some towels.

A while later, Hiccup was sitting clean-haired and in dry clothes by the fire. Toothless' hair was a puff of drying black in the firelight, his body huddled in nothing but a wool blanket. His only full set of clothes hung, soaking and still slightly muddy, on a line above the fire. Thank Odin they lived in a houseful of men, or else it would have been awkward, undies hanging in the middle of the room and a naked man still trying to contain his giggles beneath his meager coverings.

"We should do that again," Toothless bubbled, and Hiccup looked up from where he'd begun doodling in his sketchbook. He'd taken off his prosthetic, and both legs, one stumped at the knee, hung over the arm of his chair.

"What, you keen on getting a mudbath again?" He smirked.

"No, only on seeing you looking like a swamp ghoul," he smiled. The expression Hiccup sent him made him snort.

Eventually, when Toothless' clothes refused to dry, Stoick lent him one of his tunics, and the slighter man wore it like a long robe. Stoick retreated to his room for a time to eat and relax from the day. When he re-emerged near sundown, both his son and his friend were fast asleep in their chairs, mouths open, arms splayed.

If Stoick carried each of them carefully upstairs and put them into their beds, it was a moment that no one else would ever hear about. The last thing Berk's chief needed was anyone knowing that he'd turned soft.

Once the boys were both warm under their covers, Stoick looked them over, snoring softly as they were, their beds a few metres apart. Toothless muttered and turned over his bed, wiggling his head against his pillow until he found a comfy spot. For the briefest of moments, Stoick wondered if he was glimpsing into alternate history where Hiccup was not an only child. Then, he shook his head and turned away, refusing to acknowledge the thought that had appeared in the back of his mind.

He'd grown to love Toothless. Not as just a dragon, but as a second son – in the strangest, most bizarre, but most touching of ways.

Not that either of the boys would ever learn that.

But when Hiccup woke up in the middle of the night and saw how they were both in bed and not cramped in chairs, he would smile and shake his head fondly, because he had an idea. He sometimes wondered if his father realized that actions spoke louder than words.


End file.
